Halloween brings moans and groans from many older adults even though younger generations see it as a fun time that kids need.

Generally, both have a valid view, I think. 

Is there a real purpose for Halloween as there is for special days like  Thanksgiving, Christmas, even Martin Luther King Day?  Not really, given it’s very fuzzy past and lack of formal declaration by local, state or federal governments. 

Sure,  the government isn’t necessary to formalize a holiday but I think to have a merchandise and retailer driven day and evening that puts social pressure on those who disagree with it in neighborhoods throughout the country doesn’t make it acceptable either.  In other words, it’s tough to be the only house on the block with the lights out.  Your house can be  singled out for punishment that can cost you.      

How do retailers benefit?  Check the figures.  The public spent $4.96 billion on Halloween in 2006.  That encompasses  candy, apples, piazza and whatever is given out to the walking millions who fan out through the countryside Oct. 31 as well as  the variously approved types of costumes that are on the market.  The cost was up $1.66 billion from 2005. 

The difficulty in an economic downturn is that you can spend between $50 and $100 whether you want  to or not. Turn off the lights and you may find punishment you feel you didn’t deserve simply because kids today don’t respond the way kids did in the 20th century.  In fact, it brings up the question about the purpose of the celebration when  most young people have no idea of what the day means.

If you track the history of this strange celebration you have to go back to the ancient Celt festival known as Sambian, an old Irish term.  It was created to end the harvest season in that culture.  Some even called it the Celtic New Year. 

The celebration was used by pagans to acknowledge the inventory of supplies and the slaughter of livestock for the coming winter.  The Gaels believed that October 31 had to be the so-called “Halloween” because it separated the live and dead animals and the deceased carcasses were known to bring about sickness or spoiled crops.  Such events, therefore, featured bonfires to burn the remains of the dead livestock.  The fires brought costumes and masks for participants to wear to show how they wanted to cast off evil spirits. 

Fast forward to America today where the pumpkin, carved to show a face and outlined from within by the flickering light of a candle, is one of the most distinguishing symbols of the harvest season.  Yet, lanterns didn’t really start in the United States.  Europe originated the lanterns which were carved from turnip or rutabaga.  They emanated from a Celt belief that the head of the vegetable would frighten away any superstitious notion .

Who was “jack-o’-lantern?”  A character from an Irish legend called “Stingy Jack” who was considered a greedy, gambling, alcoholic old farmer.  The story was legend  that Jack tricked the devil to climb a tree and then trapped him by putting a cross in the tree trunk. Jack was cursed by the devil and condemned to forever travel the earth at night lit only by a candle inside a hollowed turnip. 

How did pumpkins replace turnips in North America?

Simple, the soft, mushy pumpkins were easier to carve and more plentiful.

The popularity of Halloween in this country is recorded before the great famine era that brought a flood of Irish immigrants and became easily associated with harvest time in the mid-to-late 19th century. 

Halloween images in this country, especially as demonstrated in films that featured it, create the illusion of dark and mysterious happenings and characters and the usual scenes involved deal with death, magic and the supernatural. 

But the cost continues to make the unofficial holiday more expensive and benefit merchants.   In the old days, families made their costumes using everything from grocery bags to sewn together odds and ends. They also gave out fruit some of which they raised themselves.    Today?  Time seems to demand you go to the grocery store or even a pharmacy and pay an average $38.11 to buy a costume that would probably be tossed November 1. 

What are your memories of Halloween? Should the informal holiday be kept or dropped?  Write me at jbehrens@roadrunner.com.