Halloween comes around every year, with costumes and candy galore. Parties are prevalent and everyone gets the opportunity to become someone else for the night. I trick or treated every year for a long time. It became almost like a mission, there were tools and strategies. It took stamina, speed, and determination. At table talk we discussed among many topics, that not everyone has heard of Halloween. In other areas of the world their is no Halloween. Different festivals fall around the same time as Halloween. Mexico’s day of the dead and other harvest festivals just to give an example. There are different traditions around Halloween, but many see it as the day where the dead are closest to this world, which is where the idea of the Halloween festival began with the Celtics. Halloween is far from a festival to remember and protect ourselves from the dead. Commercialization has swept through the holidays, and Halloween was not spared.
Rose Scholars Fall 2017
Endless possibilities
Very interesting. To me, Halloween isn’t a true holiday any more, but rather an excuse for little kids to go get candy at night and for college kids to throw parties. I consider holidays days in which we have off from school to remember people who have served or important events that have impacted our country. I think it is interesting that you brought up Halloween being a day that we are closest to the dead. Now that it has been commercialized, the holiday will never be anything but a fun day of the year, but perhaps we can use it to remember important people who are no longer living.
Your point on the commercialization of halloween is particularly interesting, also in regards to current events. If you haven’t noticed, daylight savings is happening two weeks later this year and is likely to continue doing so. Why? The rumored answer is that candy lobbies pushed Congress to change the date in order to allow for an extra hour of trick-or-treating on Halloween!