Halloween

Question - What is the second most popular holiday of the year in this country?

Answer - Halloween. The nation as a whole will spend over $6 billion; 50 percent of Americans will take photographs of family or friends in costume; 70 percent of American households will open their doors and offer candy to strangers, most of them children.

Number one by the way, if you hadn't guessed it, is Christmas.

How did Halloween start and why?

For the Celtic people of Northeastern Europe, November 1st was New Year's Day, and October 31 was the last night of the year. Celts believed it was the night that spirits, ghosts, fairies and goblins freely walked the earth. Archaeologists aren't entirely sure what all the traditions were, but they believe the holiday involved bonfires, dressing up in costumes to scare away evil spirits, and offering food and drink to the spirits of family members who had come back to visit the home.

It was Pope Gregory III in the eighth century A.D. who tried to turn Halloween into a Christian holiday to divert Northern Europeans from celebrating an old pagan ritual. He made November 1st All Saints Day, and October 31 became All Hallows Eve. Instead of providing food and drink to the spirits, Christians were encouraged to provide food and drink to the poor. And instead of dressing up like animals and ghosts, Christians were encouraged to dress up like their favorite saints.

In the United States, Puritans tried to outlaw Halloween, in part because of its association with Catholicism. So it was the Irish Catholics who brought Halloween to this country, when they immigrated here in great numbers after the potato famine in the 1840's. Since the Irish were largely poor and oppressed, Halloween became a holiday for them to let off steam by pulling pranks, hoisting wagons onto barn roofs, releasing cows from their pastures, and committing all kinds of mischief involving outhouses. Treats evolved as a way to bribe the vandals and protect homes.

But by the late 1800's, Victorian women's magazines began to offer suggestions for celebrating Halloween in wholesome ways, with barn dancing and apple bobbing. And by the early 20th Century, it became a holiday for children more than adults. In 1920, the Ladies' Home Journal made the first known reference to children going door to door for candy, and by the 1950's it was a universal practice in this country. By 1999, 92 percent of America's children were trick-or-treatin

Halloween for me is the day I entered the United States back in 1955. Today I celebrated my 50th anniversary of being in this country. When I landed in New York in 1955, I remember asking my mother's uncle who picked us up at the pier what were all the crazy decorations for.
The only thing I could relate it to was our celebration of carneval in February.

Trick or treating in the North End as a youngster was a lot of work. Most apartment buildings on average had four floors and for the most part we would climb all four floors. I remember some of the stairways being very narrow barely accomodating a parade of kids going up and another coming down. You didn't have to walk too far to fill a shopping bag full of candy. Yes, us poor kids used a shopping bag and some would borrow an old pillow case to put our candy in. We didn't have money to buy a costume, so we would improvise with whatever we could find at home. I hated when someone gave me a candied apple. I remember Mrs. DelloRusso on Salem St. would give out shiny nickels in lieu of candy; that's the equivalent of 50 cents today.

We worked for our treats. Now kids are accompanied by their parents and are driven from place to place. Even the parents dress up today and some houses are all decked out, more so that at Christmas.

Halloween to me now has a special meaning. It makes me stop and thank the Lord for giving me the opportunity to come to this great land called America.