This is Halloween!

Perhaps one of the second most popular holiday in the American culture is Halloween. Being my absolute favorite holiday I was concerned when I heard that it was not a particularly celebrated holiday in Belgium. In fact from what many of the other exchange students had told me, it is not a particularly celebrated holiday around the world. I was fortunate enough to travel to Ireland over the holiday and was able to experience Halloween from it's roots.

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, whose 2,000 years old origin can be traced to  Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the natural and spirit world became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids (Celtic priests,) to make predictions about the future. In order to secure themselves in a pleasant future the Celts would have huge bon fires where the would throw sacrifices of animals and crops to please the Druids. They would also disguise themselves in order to frighten off the evil spirits that would attempt to interfere with the ceremony. Nowadays, Halloween is Celebrated much the same way as it is in The United States, with Trick or Treating, special fall foods, and of course Halloween parties for all ages.

As for America, celebration of Halloween before the second half of the 19th century was extremely limited because of the very strict Protestant belief systems that were found in that area. Then as the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups as well as the American Indians began to blend, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. Some of the first celebrations included public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell fortunes, dance and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities frequently featured the sharing of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. It had begun to develop as a very strong community event, which is still a tradition that is upheld today. In the second half of the 19th century, new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Stemming from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. As years progressed towns found more and more ways to make the celebration more community friendly and community involved. Halloween parties moved into schools and became a common element in the lives of children across the country.

My Experience with Halloween in Ireland was excellent. I was surprised that not only was there celebration on the date itself, but several days before as well. People could be seen in costume starting on Thursday for the Monday event! At the same time, there was not much of a difference between the way that the event is celebrated back home. This was a great comfort to have something that was so familiar in a world where so much is different.