Halloween

[April_Rose]

Alas, trick-or-treating and Halloween parties probably can't happen this year, yet another casualty of this pandemic which has been going on for SO LONG NOW.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Since I found out it's the devil's holiday, I will no longer celebrate it

The devil doesn't have holidays. And he certainly doesn't get to own any Christian holidays, and Halloween is a Christian holiday.

Halloween is a contraction of Hallow's Evening (Hallow's Even'n -> Hallowe'en -> Halloween). The word "hallow" should be familiar to anyone who grew up learning the traditional, older language of the Lord's Prayer,

"Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name"

It's related to the word "holy".

In modern English we would say "All Saints Day Eve", as November 1st is All Saints Day (also in the past called Allhallowsmas or Hallowmas, compare with Christmas). It is the day on the western Christian calendar on which the Feast of All Saints is observed. A day that is often used to remember the many saints who have come before us, very often the ones that have not been remembered by name through history. We have days throughout the year to remember and honor the lives of God's people, most of us are at least familiar with the Feast Day of St. Patrick and the Feast Day of St. Valentine. And so here, on November 1st a day has been set aside to remember the lives of all God's people who have come before us, to remember what the Scriptures call "the great cloud of witnesses".

So on October 31st there is the evening before All Saints Day, All Saints Day Eve, or again as we usually call it, Halloween.

If you go on the internet you're going to find a whole lot of blathering nonsense, and that is unfortunately because very often when a lie is told often enough, and is accepted by enough people, it then gets repeated and repeated without many people stopping to actually ask themselves if it's true and go do some research. Even reputable sources can succumb to this problem.

You may have heard, or you may hear or read if you try Google searching it, that Halloween was based on an ancient Celtic pagan festival called Samhain. Or even worse, you might hear the claim that it was a festival to worship an ancient pagan god called Samhain, and they may even claim that Samhain had horns, and was a devil-looking god, you know, just to make sure to get people scared.

So let's address these first. So the whole idea that there was a pagan Celtic god called Samhain is false. Just straight up false. The Celts did not have such a god, it is purely imaginary, and has absolutely zero support in actual historical fact. Now, the Celts did have a festival called Samhain. However, in spite of what you might read on the internet, historians really don't know much about it.

The Celts of Ireland converted to Christianity very early. Now we sometimes imagine that St. Patrick was the first Christian to preach the Gospel to the Irish tribes, but there had been earlier missionary efforts undertaken, and so there was almost certainly Irish Christian communities even when Patrick arrived. What Patrick was instrumental in was the conversion of a powerful Irish chieftan or king, and the fruits of this was widespread conversion, and a base of missionary operations that would fully convert the entire Irish population. The Irish took to Christianity very strongly and became very zealous, in fact it was Irish missionary monks who brought the Gospel among the Pictish and Scottish tribes of Scotland, who preached the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons after the the conquest of Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain. I mention this, because it's important to understand just how thoroughly and rather quickly Ireland went from being pagan to Christian, and just how devoted and zealous they were in their Christianity.

So the reason why this is relevant here is because the the pre-Christian Irish did not leave us with any written records, and we simply don't have a lot of information about pre-Christian Irish paganism. And so a lot of what we do have, as records, are records from many hundreds of years later, written by Christians, often writing fanciful stories for entertainment. And IIRC it is basically only from these later Christian tales that we hear that at one time the Irish observed Samhain, an autumn harvest festival that celebrated, well, the harvest, because the cold winter months were coming and getting all those crops harvested and stored away for winter is something cultures throughout the world have done--in the US we do it too, it's called Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the American harvest festival.

So what happened on Samhain, or what did the pre-Christian Irish pagans believe happened? Well, we don't really know. And we really don't know how they celebrated it. We have guesses (they probably drank mead, maybe?). But from those much later Christian Irish legends we see tales of fairies (hence fairy tales mind you), and that they seem to appear more frequently around Samhain, perhaps because for some reason during this time the "wall" between this world and the ordinarily invisible world of the fairies was weaker, and so fairies would show up and get spotted.

But, again, these are legends, stories, tales, things written to amuse, and they were written by Christians, not pagans. And they were written centuries after Irish paganism had long been gone.

Also, Samhain didn't happen on October 31st. The Irish before their conversion to Christianity didn't have an October. They had their own calendar. They adopted the Roman calendar after their conversion to Christianity.

So what is the actual history?

Well, it's not very sensational, it's kind of boring by comparison. Throughout the Christian world different days had been set aside to honor all the saints, often it was always on a Sunday, which is still what the Eastern Orthodox do, they don't observe the Feast of All Saints on November 1st (and thus they don't have Halloween), instead they have the Sunday of All Saints, it is celebrated on the Sunday following Pentecost. Likewise, in the Western Church, different days were observed, there simply wasn't a standard everyone use. But then in the 8th century Pope Gregory III built an oratory in the original St. Peter's Basilica and dedicated it to all the saints, and when it was fully built the dedication feast to all the saints was held on November 1st. Which led, in the years following, to the Feast of All Saints occurring on the anniversary of this event. A century later, Pope Gregory IV then officially pronounced November 1st the Feast of All Saints, making the Roman custom official throughout the entire Western Church.

That's it. A medieval pope chose to make November 1st the standardized day on which the Feast of All Saints would be celebrated in the West. And the reason for this was because it had become customary in Rome already to do so to honor the building of an oratory.

It's not very exciting, no witches, no pagans, no devils, no spooky ghost stories, no magic. Just a bit of ecclesiastical paperwork.

So, no, Halloween isn't "the devil's holiday". Even if one chooses to ignore everything else I wrote, then at least remember this: the devil doesn't get holidays.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[jayem]

The devil doesn't have holidays. And he certainly doesn't get to own any Christian holidays, and Halloween is a Christian holiday.

Halloween is a contraction of Hallow's Evening (Hallow's Even'n -> Hallowe'en -> Halloween). The word "hallow" should be familiar to anyone who grew up learning the traditional, older language of the Lord's Prayer,

"Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name"

It's related to the word "holy".

In modern English we would say "All Saints Day Eve", as November 1st is All Saints Day (also in the past called Allhallowsmas or Hallowmas, compare with Christmas). It is the day on the western Christian calendar on which the Feast of All Saints is observed. A day that is often used to remember the many saints who have come before us, very often the ones that have not been remembered by name through history. We have days throughout the year to remember and honor the lives of God's people, most of us are at least familiar with the Feast Day of St. Patrick and the Feast Day of St. Valentine. And so here, on November 1st a day has been set aside to remember the lives of all God's people who have come before us, to remember what the Scriptures call "the great cloud of witnesses".

So on October 31st there is the evening before All Saints Day, All Saints Day Eve, or again as we usually call it, Halloween.

If you go on the internet you're going to find a whole lot of blathering nonsense, and that is unfortunately because very often when a lie is told often enough, and is accepted by enough people, it then gets repeated and repeated without many people stopping to actually ask themselves if it's true and go do some research. Even reputable sources can succumb to this problem.

You may have heard, or you may hear or read if you try Google searching it, that Halloween was based on an ancient Celtic pagan festival called Samhain. Or even worse, you might hear the claim that it was a festival to worship an ancient pagan god called Samhain, and they may even claim that Samhain had horns, and was a devil-looking god, you know, just to make sure to get people scared.

So let's address these first. So the whole idea that there was a pagan Celtic god called Samhain is false. Just straight up false. The Celts did not have such a god, it is purely imaginary, and has absolutely zero support in actual historical fact. Now, the Celts did have a festival called Samhain. However, in spite of what you might read on the internet, historians really don't know much about it.

The Celts of Ireland converted to Christianity very early. Now we sometimes imagine that St. Patrick was the first Christian to preach the Gospel to the Irish tribes, but there had been earlier missionary efforts undertaken, and so there was almost certainly Irish Christian communities even when Patrick arrived. What Patrick was instrumental in was the conversion of a powerful Irish chieftan or king, and the fruits of this was widespread conversion, and a base of missionary operations that would fully convert the entire Irish population. The Irish took to Christianity very strongly and became very zealous, in fact it was Irish missionary monks who brought the Gospel among the Pictish and Scottish tribes of Scotland, who preached the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons after the the conquest of Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain. I mention this, because it's important to understand just how thoroughly and rather quickly Ireland went from being pagan to Christian, and just how devoted and zealous they were in their Christianity.

So the reason why this is relevant here is because the the pre-Christian Irish did not leave us with any written records, and we simply don't have a lot of information about pre-Christian Irish paganism. And so a lot of what we do have, as records, are records from many hundreds of years later, written by Christians, often writing fanciful stories for entertainment. And IIRC it is basically only from these later Christian tales that we hear that at one time the Irish observed Samhain, an autumn harvest festival that celebrated, well, the harvest, because the cold winter months were coming and getting all those crops harvested and stored away for winter is something cultures throughout the world have done--in the US we do it too, it's called Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the American harvest festival.

So what happened on Samhain, or what did the pre-Christian Irish pagans believe happened? Well, we don't really know. And we really don't know how they celebrated it. We have guesses (they probably drank mead, maybe?). But from those much later Christian Irish legends we see tales of fairies (hence fairy tales mind you), and that they seem to appear more frequently around Samhain, perhaps because for some reason during this time the "wall" between this world and the ordinarily invisible world of the fairies was weaker, and so fairies would show up and get spotted.

But, again, these are legends, stories, tales, things written to amuse, and they were written by Christians, not pagans. And they were written centuries after Irish paganism had long been gone.

Also, Samhain didn't happen on October 31st. The Irish before their conversion to Christianity didn't have an October. They had their own calendar. They adopted the Roman calendar after their conversion to Christianity.

So what is the actual history?

Well, it's not very sensational, it's kind of boring by comparison. Throughout the Christian world different days had been set aside to honor all the saints, often it was always on a Sunday, which is still what the Eastern Orthodox do, they don't observe the Feast of All Saints on November 1st (and thus they don't have Halloween), instead they have the Sunday of All Saints, it is celebrated on the Sunday following Pentecost. Likewise, in the Western Church, different days were observed, there simply wasn't a standard everyone use. But then in the 8th century Pope Gregory III built an oratory in the original St. Peter's Basilica and dedicated it to all the saints, and when it was fully built the dedication feast to all the saints was held on November 1st. Which led, in the years following, to the Feast of All Saints occurring on the anniversary of this event. A century later, Pope Gregory IV then officially pronounced November 1st the Feast of All Saints, making the Roman custom official throughout the entire Western Church.

That's it. A medieval pope chose to make November 1st the standardized day on which the Feast of All Saints would be celebrated in the West. And the reason for this was because it had become customary in Rome already to do so to honor the building of an oratory.

It's not very exciting, no witches, no pagans, no devils, no spooky ghost stories, no magic. Just a bit of ecclesiastical paperwork.

So, no, Halloween isn't "the devil's holiday". Even if one chooses to ignore everything else I wrote, then at least remember this: the devil doesn't get holidays.

-CryptoLutheran

Yes. It's my understanding that Halloween is somewhat of a syncretism. A blend of traditions. It's the Celtic Samhain festival linked with, and followed by All Saint's Day. It was done to make Christianity more palatable to pagans. Christmas is also syncretic. It superimposed a birthday celebration for Jesus on the Saturnalia. Which was a popular winter solstice holiday in Roman times.

Both Halloween and Christmas are based on making Christianity acceptable to pagan converts. In a sense, they're marketing tools.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Yes. It's my understanding that Halloween is somewhat of a syncretism. A blend of traditions. It's the Celtic Samhain festival linked with, and followed by All Saint's Day. It was done to make Christianity more palatable to pagans. Christmas is also syncretic. It superimposed a birthday celebration for Jesus on the Saturnalia. Which was a popular winter solstice holiday in Roman times.

Both Halloween and Christmas are based on making Christianity acceptable to pagan converts. In a sense, they're marketing tools.

The thing though, in both cases, it's just not true.

There's no association between Samhain and All Saints Day (or its vespers in this case); just as there is no association between Saturnalia and Christmas.

The practice of gift-giving associated with Saturnalia did remain among Christian Romans, though this period lost its religious and pagan significance following the conversion of the Roman Empire beginning with Constantine. Instead it became more of a folk period that involved a bit of feasting and gift-giving. But, also, it's important to keep in mind that Saturnalia, at its fullest extent, lasted from December 17th to December 23rd. Other than proximity, there isn't anything to be said between the two.

The practice of gift-giving on Christmas is relatively recent, like probably really recent as in 1800's recent. Obviously the giving of gifts at different times throughout the year has been a common practice throughout cultures for a variety of reasons, but this was never really a traditional or specifically Christmas practice. Though throughout different periods of the year, during different Church Seasons there has often been an emphasis put on alms-giving and giving to the poor and the hungry. And the period between St. Nicholas Day (December 6th) and New Years Day (January 1st) was one such period where charity was emphasized, as generosity and charity, providing for the poor and the hungry, are virtues and practices which Christians have historically been called to exhibit in their lives and live out in their communities.

Santa Clause comes from St. Nicholas of Myra. Things which were associated with the particularly Dutch way of observing the Feast of St. Nicholas were brought to the New World via the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, or as it is more widely known, New York. Such as children leaving their shoes outside the front door to receive a coin from St. Nicholas, a fun children's activity that honored the legacy of St. Nicholas who was renown for his kindness and generosity, having come from a wealthy family, he became bishop of Myra in the 4th century, and chose to use the money he had to give to the poor who needed it far more than he did. And so St. Nicholas has always been associated with generosity, giving to those in need, hence also one of the previously mentioned reasons why around this time charity and alms-giving was encouraged. As for the shoes being left out, this is why children hang stockings on the chimney today. Why a chimney? Well, because of a famous poem.

I could go on, but my point I think is made.

And the same thing with Halloween, virtually everything we associate with the modern Halloween--candy, costumes, etc--has nothing to do with any ancient Celtic harvest festival, these are inventions of the modern age. Trick or treating was thought up by business owners who were tired of "the youths" pulling pranks in town, and instead decided to give out treats. Dressing up was fun, it was a way to keep kids safe and not getting into any trouble. And spooky themes? Well spooky themes are fun, people like spooky things. It's why we have thousands of years of telling tales of monsters, and things that go bump in the night. There's something that appeals to us, like a safe opportunity for us to confront fear in a harmless way. It's why we watch scary movies. The spooky is fun. And it's a good time to do spooky, I mean, leaves are changing colors and dying in the northern hemisphere, the nights are getting dark now, there's a chill in the air, it's perfect. And, well, why not do some spooky fun on a day that people are already doing things.

But basically everything about modern Halloween is an American invention.

So the syncretic argument just doesn't pan out, not when one takes a deep dive.

As I said in my previous post, you can absolutely find the syncretic position claimed all over the internet--it's something that gets repeated and repeated, and for some reason only occasionally do people seem to fact check it. It's like the way that we all grew up hearing that Columbus went out to prove the earth was round and then discovered America, when in fact everyone already knew the earth was round, Columbus thought the world was smaller than it was, and was an idiot who wanted to waste money on a suicide westard trip to India. And then he accidentally crashed into Haiti, decided to call the native Arawak people "Indians" because he stupidly and stubbornly insisted that he found India, and continued to insist that even when the rest of Europe already realized that this was an entirely new and previously unknown land. And then he decided to do some tyranny, genocide, and rape. Which is why there are no more Arawak people. The fiction, rather than the history, has been what's been repeated. Which is exactly what has happened for a long time with things like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. Fiction, rather than fact, is what gets repeated.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[RickardoHolmes]

I LOVE Halloween. The fact that it is September, that the stores have Halloween decorations out already, and it is September, so we can put out the Fall decorations....FUN time of year.


Labor Day sort of starts the Fall season, which is centered around Halloween and Football. But this year, Covid 19 May put a damper on the festivities and plans. We are looking at how to have a safe Halloween night with social distancing in the haunted house (We have a place where most of the neighborhood congregates around here for the night)
Halloween Segways into Thanksgiving, which is a very beautiful holiday which gets over shadowed by the material aspects of Christmas in American society, then of course, Advent and Christmas......September is kind of the opening of the windows of the Holiday season.

As for New Years, I always work, I do not celebrate the man made holidays of Valentines, St Patrick's and Stinko-de-Mayo, I do not celebrate Easter as I always work and I always work Memorial Day as well. I do take July 4th off, but it would seem that what we have is a pattern whereby the holidays we celebrate all happen in the last quarter of the year.


BUT back to HALLOWEEN, or All-Hallows Eve. Our displays are overboard, and excessive, and I love it that way. We set up a Haunted House every Halloween, usually have hundreds of people coming by, getting into the entire Holiday

one neighbor thanked us for doing something purely for fun and enjoyment. We do not charge money, we spend $$$ To put this on, and it is worth it to see the enjoyment of the neighbors.

SO yes, I am starting to put Fall decorations out this week, and I will put the actual Halloween decorations (skeletons,spiders, lights ect) out on October 1st.

 

[April_Rose]

The devil doesn't have holidays. And he certainly doesn't get to own any Christian holidays, and Halloween is a Christian holiday.

Halloween is a contraction of Hallow's Evening (Hallow's Even'n -> Hallowe'en -> Halloween). The word "hallow" should be familiar to anyone who grew up learning the traditional, older language of the Lord's Prayer,

"Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name"

It's related to the word "holy".

In modern English we would say "All Saints Day Eve", as November 1st is All Saints Day (also in the past called Allhallowsmas or Hallowmas, compare with Christmas). It is the day on the western Christian calendar on which the Feast of All Saints is observed. A day that is often used to remember the many saints who have come before us, very often the ones that have not been remembered by name through history. We have days throughout the year to remember and honor the lives of God's people, most of us are at least familiar with the Feast Day of St. Patrick and the Feast Day of St. Valentine. And so here, on November 1st a day has been set aside to remember the lives of all God's people who have come before us, to remember what the Scriptures call "the great cloud of witnesses".

So on October 31st there is the evening before All Saints Day, All Saints Day Eve, or again as we usually call it, Halloween.

If you go on the internet you're going to find a whole lot of blathering nonsense, and that is unfortunately because very often when a lie is told often enough, and is accepted by enough people, it then gets repeated and repeated without many people stopping to actually ask themselves if it's true and go do some research. Even reputable sources can succumb to this problem.

You may have heard, or you may hear or read if you try Google searching it, that Halloween was based on an ancient Celtic pagan festival called Samhain. Or even worse, you might hear the claim that it was a festival to worship an ancient pagan god called Samhain, and they may even claim that Samhain had horns, and was a devil-looking god, you know, just to make sure to get people scared.

So let's address these first. So the whole idea that there was a pagan Celtic god called Samhain is false. Just straight up false. The Celts did not have such a god, it is purely imaginary, and has absolutely zero support in actual historical fact. Now, the Celts did have a festival called Samhain. However, in spite of what you might read on the internet, historians really don't know much about it.

The Celts of Ireland converted to Christianity very early. Now we sometimes imagine that St. Patrick was the first Christian to preach the Gospel to the Irish tribes, but there had been earlier missionary efforts undertaken, and so there was almost certainly Irish Christian communities even when Patrick arrived. What Patrick was instrumental in was the conversion of a powerful Irish chieftan or king, and the fruits of this was widespread conversion, and a base of missionary operations that would fully convert the entire Irish population. The Irish took to Christianity very strongly and became very zealous, in fact it was Irish missionary monks who brought the Gospel among the Pictish and Scottish tribes of Scotland, who preached the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons after the the conquest of Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain. I mention this, because it's important to understand just how thoroughly and rather quickly Ireland went from being pagan to Christian, and just how devoted and zealous they were in their Christianity.

So the reason why this is relevant here is because the the pre-Christian Irish did not leave us with any written records, and we simply don't have a lot of information about pre-Christian Irish paganism. And so a lot of what we do have, as records, are records from many hundreds of years later, written by Christians, often writing fanciful stories for entertainment. And IIRC it is basically only from these later Christian tales that we hear that at one time the Irish observed Samhain, an autumn harvest festival that celebrated, well, the harvest, because the cold winter months were coming and getting all those crops harvested and stored away for winter is something cultures throughout the world have done--in the US we do it too, it's called Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the American harvest festival.

So what happened on Samhain, or what did the pre-Christian Irish pagans believe happened? Well, we don't really know. And we really don't know how they celebrated it. We have guesses (they probably drank mead, maybe?). But from those much later Christian Irish legends we see tales of fairies (hence fairy tales mind you), and that they seem to appear more frequently around Samhain, perhaps because for some reason during this time the "wall" between this world and the ordinarily invisible world of the fairies was weaker, and so fairies would show up and get spotted.

But, again, these are legends, stories, tales, things written to amuse, and they were written by Christians, not pagans. And they were written centuries after Irish paganism had long been gone.

Also, Samhain didn't happen on October 31st. The Irish before their conversion to Christianity didn't have an October. They had their own calendar. They adopted the Roman calendar after their conversion to Christianity.

So what is the actual history?

Well, it's not very sensational, it's kind of boring by comparison. Throughout the Christian world different days had been set aside to honor all the saints, often it was always on a Sunday, which is still what the Eastern Orthodox do, they don't observe the Feast of All Saints on November 1st (and thus they don't have Halloween), instead they have the Sunday of All Saints, it is celebrated on the Sunday following Pentecost. Likewise, in the Western Church, different days were observed, there simply wasn't a standard everyone use. But then in the 8th century Pope Gregory III built an oratory in the original St. Peter's Basilica and dedicated it to all the saints, and when it was fully built the dedication feast to all the saints was held on November 1st. Which led, in the years following, to the Feast of All Saints occurring on the anniversary of this event. A century later, Pope Gregory IV then officially pronounced November 1st the Feast of All Saints, making the Roman custom official throughout the entire Western Church.

That's it. A medieval pope chose to make November 1st the standardized day on which the Feast of All Saints would be celebrated in the West. And the reason for this was because it had become customary in Rome already to do so to honor the building of an oratory.

It's not very exciting, no witches, no pagans, no devils, no spooky ghost stories, no magic. Just a bit of ecclesiastical paperwork.

So, no, Halloween isn't "the devil's holiday". Even if one chooses to ignore everything else I wrote, then at least remember this: the devil doesn't get holidays.

-CryptoLutheran

None of this really has to do with how Halloween itself is celebrated today though. It's mostly a candy holiday now.

 

[jayem]

Not to get off topic. But I like the Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead) observance in Mexico. It coincides with All Saint's Day, and lasts 2 days, IIRC. It’s when families remember their deceased loved ones. They construct ofrendas to honor them. Which are altars—always with a crucifix or cross, photos of the deceased, objects associated with his/her life, skulls or skeletons (symbolizing death,) and elaborately decorated with flowers, candles, foods, and other such items. Many years ago, I went to a professional meeting in San Antonio in early Nov. Aside from the Alamo, there are several other missions dating back to the 1700s. Which we visited on a sight-seeing tour. They’re still used for worship services. That’s where I first saw ofrendas. So obviously, the Catholic Church is ok with this kind of observance. It’s a nice custom.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Celebrate Halloween like a hardened atheist will celebrate Christmas.

I certainly will!

 

[MehGuy]

I am not really big about holidays in general. Besides maybe Thanksgiving. A nice meal with loved ones.

 

[Hazelelponi]

I don't celebrate Halloween (and I never have) nor do I give out candy etc etc.

Now in recent years since my husband's family celebrate Christmas we do go to the family dinner and exchange gifts because they do and it's rude otherwise... but we don't have a tree (and I never will) or any decorations at all in our home. (My husband is quite like-minded in this regard)

And of course when my husband was working and had a team under him (he's recently unemployed) I did the pot luck dinner, where I made desserts, homemade dinner rolls, and the main dish every year for that...

We did the dinner for his team for Easter and thanksgiving too every year.

I celebrate easter, because I'm saved and that's the day our Lord rose from the dead, and accomplished His work on our behalf.. but I refuse to do anything pagan, in any form... I'm not a pagan... I'm a child of the living God.

But... it is what it is. Most Americans don't care about such things as I do. I'm quite used to it.

 

[jayem]

but we don't have a tree (and I never will) or any decorations at all in our home. (My husband is quite like-minded in this regard)

That's interesting. My wife and I aren't the least religious in any way. But we put up a tree. (One of those fake, pre-lit jobs. But a good one. Which wasn't cheap.) Along with wreaths on the doors, and various other decorations. None of our ornaments are religious. We trim the house just as a fun, seasonal observance. I guess that's the reason some Christians won't do it. I can understand that a sincere believer might see all the adornments and trappings, (not to mention commercialism) as superficialities that detract from the religious message.

 

[Yeshua HaDerekh]

Throughout the Christian world different days had been set aside to honor all the saints, often it was always on a Sunday, which is still what the Eastern Orthodox do, they don't observe the Feast of All Saints on November 1st (and thus they don't have Halloween), instead they have the Sunday of All Saints, it is celebrated on the Sunday following Pentecost.
-CryptoLutheran

That is true. We do not have Halloween. We have the Feast of the Nativity instead of Christmas and Pascha instead of Easter. Different names in the East vs West.

 

[essentialsaltes]

I can understand that a sincere believer might see all the adornments and trappings, (not to mention commercialism) as superficialities that detract from the religious message.

 

[ViaCrucis]

None of this really has to do with how Halloween itself is celebrated today though. It's mostly a candy holiday now.

I really just wanted to get ahead of the "Halloween is evil" posts that inevitably show up anytime Halloween gets mentioned on the forums.

Because Halloween isn't evil. In a Christian context it's simply the Vespers before All Saints Day. And in a secular context it's just a time to dress up, eat sugar, and have fun. And that fun--the enjoyment of the created world, the celebration of life, and love which we share with one another as human beings, those are intrinsically and innately good things.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[April_Rose]

Hehe this song popped into my mind.

 

[Sketcher]

Also apple bobbing is a good activity.

Not if the first person in has worked a full day in physical labor and has failed to take a shower.

 

[April_Rose]

Not if the first person in has worked a full day in physical labor and has failed to take a shower.

Uhh,.. what does that have to do with the game itself?

 

[Sketcher]

Uhh,.. what does that have to do with the game itself?

It makes the water nasty for everyone after that person.

 

[April_Rose]

It makes the water nasty for everyone after that person.

Oh,.. umm,.. okay,.. have you had any personal experience with this? LOL

 

[Sketcher]

Oh,.. umm,.. okay,.. have you had any personal experience with this? LOL

Yes I have.