Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: The Tradition of Halloween
Halloween 2020 had its own creep factor and in 2021 folks are being cautious but there will be costumed parties and trick or treating.
There are differing opinions as to the origin of the celebration of Halloween.
I’m going with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced Sow in). These people celebrated the new year on November 1st as the end of summer and harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter.
Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.
On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
The likely MAIN focus of Samhain was that people would gather and start bonfires and animals and crops were burned as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. It was a way of giving the Celtic Gods and Goddesses their share of the crops and herds from the previous year. In addition to being used for sacrifice, these fires were considered sacred and served to cleanse the old year and prepare for the new year.
Through the years, traditions were brought to America through European immigrants and the celebrations changed in a number of ways. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was revived.
Trick-or-treating was a way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood kids with small treats. A new American tradition was born.
Americans spend are expected to spend an estimated $10 billion on Halloween for 2021, up from $9 billion last year! It’s our country’s second largest commercial holiday.
Americans are also the ones who started using pumpkins as jack-o-lanterns, or Jack of the Lantern.
They were originally carved out of turnips. In Europe, all sorts of vegetables were carved to create lanterns for night watchmen who would carry them on their routes. In the U. S. we sat them on our front steps to keep evil spirits away.
