Halloween’s roots can date back more than 2,000 years ago when the Celts participated in their holiday called “Samhain.” The basis of the holiday was to celebrate the upcoming months of darkness, when deceased loved ones would come back and greet the living. Unfortunately, when opening the gates to the mortal world, other entities would come out as well including witches and evil spirits. People wore masks to fool the spirits, and gave out candy to bribe them, so they would not get harassed.
All of this sounds familiar to the modern American Halloween but the way we celebrate leaves out one large belief. The Celts would open the barrier to speak to loved ones and reflect on their lives. We seem to forget about that practice and disregard the holidays meaning. In this case the holiday should be celebrated correctly or not celebrated at all. The holiday should be looked forward to, to be able to celebrate a loved one’s life, not looked forward to, to be able to dress up how you never would in public, and have an excuse to go party.
As a child there was no possible way of me knowing what Halloween actually celebrated, and of course looked forward to the holiday to be able to eat candy, and dress up as my favorite movie character. One year I decided to be “Beetle Juice” and it was a large hit with every crowd I went into. The feeling you got from having a widely accepted Halloween costume is one of the most thrilling feelings. Having a costume that is loved will be a memory that sticks with you for forever. Although Halloween is incredibly exciting and looked forward to by most. No one celebrates it with its intended meaning, and what is the point of celebrating a holiday with no meaning. On Christmas, we celebrate family and Christ’s birth; on Hanukkah, we celebrate the miracle of life. Even on smaller holidays such as Veteran’s Day, and Columbus Day, we celebrate for a reason. Yet for Halloween we cannot think of a reason to celebrate it.
As I got older I began to acknowledge how little people even cared about Halloween. in 2012, and in 2015 Halloween was canceled in my home town and throughout Connecticut due to snow storms. How can you possibly “cancel” a holiday? It’s because it holds no value to us. By no means am I saying that we should not have fun on Halloween, but by all means we definitely need some kind of reason to celebrate it other than to dress up and eat candy.
Halloween had me even more distraught in college than it did when I was younger. My first “Halloweekend” at college, I was not able to count how many people I saw under the influence on my two hands. The amount of times I heard women say, “I’m going to be a slutty this or maybe a slutty that” was through the roof, and over all demoralizing to a holiday that was once celebrated to remember loved ones and is now celebrated to show off your cleavage and to get so drunk you have the guts to talk to the pretty girl at the party.
There are ways that you can add meaning into your Halloween celebration. Jackie Mansky who wrote an essay on the history of Halloween and the Celts says, “Looking to add a bit of Samhain spirit to your Halloween this year? Consider leaving a loaf of bread on your kitchen table… This gesture is intended to welcome back dead loved ones.” (Mansky 1) Even doing something as simple as that will enhance the meaning to your Halloween celebration and feel like you connected to someone you loved.
Too many people forget about the real meaning of Halloween and celebrate being able to party and dress up instead of celebrating the real meaning of Halloween which is to remember loved ones lives.
