Last week I attend the table talk about Halloween in Rose dining hall. What really attracts me about this table talk is the commercialization of holidays. I felt no surprise to hear that Americans spent the second highest amount of money in Halloween, which is only lower that Christmas. Even though I am a foreigner, I understand that people regard this day as an opportunity to dress up, have candies, spend happy time with families and friends. What is particularly interesting is that we can think about nowadays, whether the main content of holidays becomes consuming. For example, in China, Halloween is absolutely not a traditional holiday as it is in America. However, I know that not to mention in metropolitan cities, like Beijing and Shanghai, even in tiny cities like my Hometown, in Halloween/Christmas or other holidays in western world, businessmen have all their advertisements to encourage people to purchase their products and celebrate the holiday. Maybe commercialization of holidays is not necessarily a bad thing as some people think, but it is definitely a kind of phenomenon worth thinking.

Last week I attended a table talk discussing the history of Halloween. I think it’s extremely interesting that Halloween is the second biggest commercial holiday (the first being Christmas), but not at all surprising considering the amount of candy and costumes Americans purchased every year. It also made me think about how America (and other countries too I’m sure) commercializes holidays. For example, Christmas is a holiday of religious significance, and while a lot of families still go to church and celebrates Christmas for what it means, there are plenty of other families who partake only in the getting together with family, exchanging gifts, etc part of Christmas. Similarly, in this table talk, we learned that Halloween had religious significance in the past, but now, it’s simply a “spooky” holiday filled with costumes and candy and a lot of fun for both adults and children.

In my opinion, I think it’s pretty cool that America has Halloween, and it definitely gives everyone an excuse to dress up and have fun, but it’s also pretty cool learning about the history behind it with GRF Seema, because that was something I hadn’t considered much before. But also, through the discussion, I feel like Halloween is a holiday that is actually quite unique in America (I don’t think anyone else enjoys it as much as we does!) and though I’m too busy and probably too old for Halloween festivities nowadays, it’s still cool to see everyone’s different costumes last week.

During table talk, we discussed the origin of Halloween and its relevance in today’s society. Halloween began as a pagan holiday in Ireland almost 2,000 years ago. How did this holiday become consumed by commercialism? Halloween today is second only to Christmas in terms of expenses. I personally celebrate Halloween and go all out in buying candy, decorations, and costumes. However, I was surprised to hear how some people don’t celebrate Halloween at all. In the end, we all came to realize that Halloween can be a time for celebration and unity.

Last Monday, I attended the Table Talk about the history of Halloween. It began as a pagan holiday, and continued to evolve under the Catholic Church as All Hallows’ Eve in conjunction with All Saints’ Day. What I found most interesting was the more recent history of Halloween in the United States, where it has become an enormous consumer holiday (second only to Christmas) and Americans spend billions of dollars on candy and costumes every year. With some of the people around me, I ended up discussing the nature of commercial holidays in the US, and how even religious observances such as Christmas and Easter have, for many people, developed into almost secular celebration centered around gift giving and Easter egg hunts, respectively. GRF Seema brought her own experiences into the discussion, suggesting that Halloween is celebrated so extravagantly because Americans have relatively few annual festivals, whereas in India there are festivals and holidays throughout the year.

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.

I had never actually attended a Table Talk before this one and really enjoyed it not only because it was Halloween but, because I got to interact with other Rose Scholars and GRF Seema. Interestingly, I never knew that Halloween was the second most commercialized holiday in the United States. I mean I was aware of the amount shopping that goes with costumes, decorations, candy, and parties but, I wasn’t entirely convinced. It is almost no surprise that Christmas is the most commercialized. Actually, in retrospect, I am kind of surprised that Halloween and Christmas don’t elicit the same amount of spending. Then again, we discussed at the Table Talk how many people do not celebrate Halloween as it was associated with the dead coming back. I personally know several people who wouldn’t let their children Trick or Treat or engage in any Halloween festivities and it was because of this idea that the dead were coming back.

I was aware of the Pagan holiday of Samhain but I didn’t know that there were Roman influences on the holiday. In addition, I found it amazing how the Celtic people would actually make the masks in order to scare the dead or make sure that the dead didn’t recognize them. These beliefs stemmed from the idea that after the harvest everything died for the winter, the times of cold, sickness, and death. Thus, this holiday could be thought of as a coping mechanism to be on terms that there is a dark age coming. The descendants of the Celtic people, the Irish, eventually came to the United States where the Halloween holiday became what it is today. After this Table Talk, I remembered seeing some old school, nightmare worthy costumes and decided to share(http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/creepy-halloween-costumes-gallery-1.2418269?pmSlide=1.2418256).

Table Talk about the History of Halloween came right on time! It was wonderful talking to everyone at the table about the different versions of Halloween in different countries. We learned about the start of Halloween began with the Celtics tribe putting food outside their door to keep the dead from coming into their homes. They would also use masks to go outside to hide from death! During the Medieval Era, people would give homeless beggers food in exchange for them praying on behalf of the person’s dead loved ones.  I thought it was so cool to see the transition of beliefs into a holiday that Americans spend roughly 6 billion dollars on every year. I am so excited for Halloween, now that I know the history behind the holiday!