The History of Halloween

Halloween happens to be my favorite holiday. Fall, the colors of the changing trees, the smell of Autumn in the air, the little nip of chill in my skin, fall just makes it so magical. Halloween is the holiday with the least expectation. You dress up, you trick-or-treat, you hand out candy, you have fun. It is a fun holiday, however; so many resent Halloween, and why? There is a lot of folklore associated with Halloween. Most of it follows on the lines of witchcraft, however; times were different way back in the early days, and what seems odd to us, was actually very normal for them. Here is some history behind my favorite holiday.

Halloween actually originated with the Celts approximately 2000 years ago in the are we now know as Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Northern France. The Celts celebrated New Years on November 1st. Making October 31 their New Years Eve. They celebrated October 31, as the end of harvest season and the start of winter. It was also associated with human death. As long winters would bring on many deaths due to climate and lack of food, the Celts took this day October 31 to celebrate and give honor to those who had deceased in the past year. They felt that the night of October 31, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On October 31, the Celts celebrated Samhain, believing that the ghosts of the dead returned to walk the earth, to cause damage to crops and just cause trouble. On this night the Celt would build a huge sacred bonfires, and burn crops and animals to please the Celtic deities. They then would dress in animal skins and try to predict each others future. When the celebration was over, they would re-light their hearth fires with fire from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

The Romans conquered most of the Celtic territory by A.D. 43, and during the course of their rein the Romans they combined two of their Roman festivals with the Celtic celebration of Samhain. One holiday was called Feralia, the second day was called Pomona. Pomona's symbol is an apple, once this festivity was included in the Celtic celebration of Samhain, it is how bobbing for apples started. Later in the 800's Christianity began it's way through the Celtic lands, and so Pope Boniface IV, designation November 1 All Saint's Day, also called All-hallows, or All-hallowmans, a time to honor saints and martyrs. They tried to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a church-sanctioned holiday, however, it didn't take and so the Celtic holiday survived. And thus the Samhain began the name All-Hallows Eve, and eventually Halloween in 1000 A.D. Also during that year November 2 was named all Souls day. So recap, October 31, Celtic Samhain holiday became Halloween, November 1, Roman Feralia holiday became All Saint's Day, and November 2, Roman holiday Pomona became All Soul's Day.

Halloween customs came to America much as most things came to America, through immigration. Though it was more common in Maryland and Southern Colonies the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups, as well as American Indians meshed and so started our American version of Halloween. Public events were held to celebrate the harvest, and neighbors would get together to share stories of the dead, and try to tell each others fortunes, sing, and dance. During the second half of the nineteenth century an influx of new immigrants were flooding America, and most of the immigrants were of Irish decent, escaping Ireland's potato famine of 1846. Taking the Irish traditions and mixing with America's traditions, people began dressing up and going door to door where they would receive "soul-cakes" in return for prayers for the persons dead relative. People also asked for food or money during their tricks-or-treats.

Young women believed that on Halloween they would find their future husband by doing "tricks" with items such as yarn, apple parings, or mirrors. In those days, it was important to find a husband and be married, so they though by throwing apple peels over their should it would spell out the name of their husband, or by going into a dark room, looking in a mirror with a candle, their husbands face would appear behind them.

By the late 1800's Halloween evolved into a more community and neighborly get together, where whole towns would come out join in an celebrate the end of the harvest season. At the turn of the century, Halloween became more for children than adults. Newspapers asked adults to take any scary or grotesque things out of Halloween celebrations. By the 20's and 30's Halloween became secular, and community centered, by the 50's vandal's had ruined many communities and so it became a celebration for just children. Due to a high number of births in the 50's celebrations moved to civic centers, the classroom, or home where they could be easily accommodated. Trick-or-Treating became an inexpensive way for a community to celebrate Halloween together even though the community was growing much larger. So now it has turned into a $6.9 Billion dollar holiday. And what do you think most of that money is spent on, Tricks-or-Treats?

The tradition of wearing costumes goes all the way back to the Celtics, since they believed the souls of the dead walked the earth on those nights, you didn't want the ghosts to recognize you were living, so they wore masks and left bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from entering. They also carved turnips into faces to scare any ghosts away. So that is why today, we dress up, Trick-or-treat, and carve pumpkins to celebrate Halloween..

All of the information found for this post, www.history.com

Deceit

How many times have you heard this story?
Man tells wife, "I no longer need you or love you I'm leaving." "I need to find myself." "I don't know who I am anymore." " I didn't realize this was going to be so hard." "We were too young when we married."

Only to have wife find out later, he has been "messing" around with someone else, and to boot someone she knows. Now when confronted with this deceit, the man states, "We are separated, it shouldn't matter what I do." "I'm not doing anything wrong." "What do you care we are not together anymore." Meanwhile what this "man" does not understand is not only did he take a piece of his wife's soul with him, he also slapped her in the face. Talk about kicking someone when they are down. That's just twisting the knife a little deeper.

When confronting the man about these indiscretions, he gives the same speech to anyone who questions him. "I'm separated, I can do what I want, I'm not doing it to hurt her, what do you know, you are making assumptions, I'm perfectly in the right." And then goes on to blame the person questioning, making statements such as, "You are not happy in your relationship so you are judging me."

What I find heart wrenching about this story is this. There is a difference in not being in love anymore, and wanting out, so you can hot dog around and see what you think you are missing in the world. It's the grass is greener complex, you think there is something better on the other side that you can't see what is right in front of you. There is also a total lack of caring or compassion for the people you hurt along the way.

Though I may not understand fully what our wife is going through, not having gone through that myself, there is deep sadness within myself over the situation. Not only do I feel bad for the wife who is so heartbroken she can hardly bare, I am losing the husband as well. A person I loved also, a person I was friends with, a person who I knew was loved by the wife. Separation, divorce, whatever it not only affects the people involved, it affects everyone involved. Grant it not to the decimation of the two involved, but to a level of sadness, loss, grief and helplessness.

When pain like this happens, there is a piece of someone who gets lost. A void that nothing can fill, and it's something that will be carried with them, always. Nothing anyone can do or say will fill that void, not even a new boyfriend or husband can fill that void. It's a void that will be carried around always. And that is the most diabolical part of our story. You may not have set out to do evil, but evils will is done.

Remember this, if you are ever thinking of hurting someone you love, or at least claimed to have loved, what you do creates a void within themselves, an empty gaping wound that can not be healed, a sorrow and sadness that is an angry weight of emotion, causing you to drown in the smallest drops of despair. Your smugness and attitude toward the infraction is just more weight on the anchor. It's unjustifiable, and it's unworthy of our efforts to save you. You deserve no savior, and you will one day reap the benefits of karma.

For now, we will help your wife pick up the pieces, scatter the ashes, and cap the void in her broken heart. We will remind her of how wonderful she is, and how you no longer deserved her. And I hope one day you will look back and see the damage you have caused, and feel remorse, for that is all we can hope for.... remorse.

Likability

It seems that as I get older I still find a lot of that teenage insecurity within myself. It's like a warm blanket on a cold day. You curl up and wrap yourself in it, it keeps you safe and warm, you understand it, it's comfortable, it's real. It's safer than trying to understand people. People are unstable, unpredictable, unreadable, but most of all, insecure. When their insecurities play with your insecurities it's volatile. What happens next becomes attitude and who is more polite.

Recently I asked my husband, "What is it about me that sets people off?" His reply was that he didn't know, and I got to thinking about the people around me I see in my life routinely and wonder why they AVOID me at all costs. Is it my appearance? I'm overweight, my face still breaks out like a hormonal teenager, I have never been a big make-up wearer so I'm usually o'naturale, I am mostly in my work clothes (business like) and my hair is wash and wear, but it's naturally curly so I don't have to do much with it. I have been told before that I am fairly bold and speak my mind, I sometimes don't have an off switch but I'm me, why should I be anything other than me.

Some of the other moms on my daughters soccer team seem to avoid me like the plague, like I don't exist, like I'm not worthy of their words. I offer to help, offer conversation, I'm polite, I cheer for the team, but they seem like they can't be bothered with me. It is very frustrating. They are not any better than I am. Most of their husbands are the same rank as mine, they may be a few years older than I am but not by much. I'm not sure what the deal is. And again, why do I have to change who I am?

Why is it that when someone looks at me, they automatically go, I don't like this person. Was it something they maybe heard about me from someone else? Do they forget the rule of two sides to every story. Along with my boldness and lack of inner monologue I have been known to blow up a time or two at injustices to myself or my family, does that make me a bad person? Or someone who cares passionately about her family, to let people know that she is done with whatever they are doing to hurt them in whatever way. I decided a very long time ago, that I was no longer going to be that shy girl who never took any chances or did anything, and I was NEVER going to let ANYONE push me around EVER again.

Or is it all in my head? Am I really just that crazy that I think everyone hates me and everyone is out to get me? Am I that unstable that the strange looks and total avoidance of woman my age has driven me mad for answers to a question that does not exist? What would cause such paranoia? I have a friend that talks bad about her other friend all the time to me, I would assume she is doing the same about me when she is with that friend. Is it my worry or lack of trust in my own head that causes me to think this? Or is it that I really should not/do not trust this person.

And the reality of it all is why are we always judging? Why are we so unforgiving? Even if the neighbor who practically destroyed my life were to walk up to me today and say "I need your help." I would totally help her. Am I that naive? Am I that stupid? Why does it frustrate me so?

I went on a mission about a year ago to start falling out of society. I had pulled myself too thin. I was doing too much and trying to keep too many people happy and neglected myself and my family. I became very aware of my need to re-align my life and so set out to do so. I didn't purposefully start severing relationships. I made my family and my house my main priority. And I still can't seem to get that right.

So what is so unlikable about me? What sets me apart from others that seem to just mold into a crowd? Why do they set out to avoid me, especially when their kids are friends with my daughter? I'm not asking for friendships here, just civil conversation. Don't stick your nose up at me and act like you are better, you are not. We all have demons, I face mine daily, when will you face yours?

A young girl lost.

She sits on the worn picnic table under the old oak tree at night and stares at the family home, she wonders when it all went wrong. Something she did a lot, to think and decompress from her day. It was getting chilly outside the cool night air was blowing on her skin. This home, looked like any other home. A little older, white aluminum siding on the bottom, brown wood siding on the top, like a big square Oreo missing it's bottom. It was home, but not for long. It held so much sadness. In her sixteen years of life she had already seen too much, known too much, and was afraid of what the future would hold. A future for most sixteen year old's that was to hold wonder, the wonder of what they would be, she already knew what she would be, nothing. Now she sits, smoking her cigarette, and wonders what will happen next. Where will her sisters go, will it ever be the same.

The now thirty-four year old women looks back on that sullen sixteen year old girl and says no, nothing will ever be the same, but you live, and you hold on, and you love, and you keep going. The hardest part is over, the pain, the fear, the uncertainty, it goes away, and new doors open, new experiences, and new struggles, but you get through them all, and you keep going. Your sisters have their struggles but they are OK, you wish you could be closer to them, but your life took a different path. A path full of regrets, of things you wish you could go back and change and undo, but you wouldn't be you without them.

I wish I could go back in time, hug that lost sixteen year old girl and tell her everything is going to be OK. I wish I could show her the life she has now, that house, the nightmares, they all go away. I wish I could guide her on her path, help her make decisions that would forever change her future. Remind her how special she is, and how God's plan for her is not yet complete. Life is massive when you are sixteen. Life is short when you are thirty-four. It moves faster, it seems murky, and it is influenced by much more. At sixteen life should be fun and amazing and full of hope, not fear.

So to my sisters I say I'm sorry, for not better guiding you through your paths, for not escaping with you as I dreamed so many nights that I would. To my sixteen year old self, we may not have done the things we thought we might have, but we have done all the things we never dreamed we would have and that past though still haunts us from time to time, it can never hurt us, or change us, or break us. We are strong, we are wise, and we will not be taken down. We ran away in the night, suitcase in hand, we started a new life, and we forgave as the Lord asked us to, just like we used to dream.

Responsibility

Whose responsibility is it?

Recently my daughters cell phone was stolen out of her locker. Now, it was my daughters fault because she didn't latch her locker fully and so it was easily opened and the phone taken, however; the schools first response was, "It's not our responsibility." So it got me thinking to all the times I have heard that phrase. Last year, the kids and I flew home for a vacation, my daughters suite case was damaged, as soon as I said it's broken the first words out of the airline employees mouth was "It's not our responsibility." At the car wash, you know the automatic one on a track that you ride through, the brushes scratched up the side of my car, the first words out of the attendants mouth were "It's not our responsibility." No matter where you go, no matter what you do, there are signs, disclaimers, waivers, that state "It's not our responsibility." Now I know most often it is to stop a potential lawsuit because of someones reckless behavior, however; when is it actually someones responsibility?

As a criminal justice major I have done paper after paper on laws and cases trying to find just exactly whose responsibility is it. We have become a society of it's not my fault. Your child sets fire to the neighbors shed, it's not the child's fault, it's the neighbors for not having his gas locked up. A man abuses his wife, it's not his fault, it's his fathers fault for abusing him as a child. A soldier here in town was shot to death in the street trying to stop a man from wielding a gun in public, it was the gunmans fault for shooting the soilder, however the community blammed the soldier for getting involved. When do we start taking responsibility for our own actions? When do we stand up and say "Oops, my bad, I made a mistake, it was my fault." No matter what your past or present situation, your choices and your actions are your own no matter what your influences.

I have been trying to teach my children responsibility and to be responsible for their actions, however; all they see day in and day out is a world begging the government to bail them out for mistakes they have made. The schools telling them no matter what happens to them on their grounds, they will not protect nor help them, other parents do not control nor discipline their children for their actions no matter how grave those actions are. When are we going to stop this insanity and start taking responsibility for the situations we put ourselves into? When is it going to be someones responsibility?

Stereotypes

Last week while standing in the coffee shop waiting for my two pounds of coffee to be ground for the office, there were two gentlemen waiting in line having a conversation. One gentleman a younger guy, balding what used to be black hair, some glasses, wearing a faded pinkish color button down shirt and jeans sporting a messenger bag, as a matter of fact, we will call him, Mess. The other gentleman an much older man, gray balding, in a tweed gray suit, a little pudgy around the mid-drift area, we'll call him Pappy. So Mess was explaining to Pappy that he had read a study done by some institute overseas about education in America and how this study showed that 90% of students who come from lower class homes didn't fare as well as their middle to upper class counterparts. That families who had more money, had smarter students than those of lower income families based on the amount of words heard in the home. That a home with a higher income level used more vocabulary words and the child heard more of a variety of words than a lower income home. So a child from a higher income family was at an advantage for reading, spelling, and writing, because of this higher vocabulary home environment than a lower income child.
That actually really floored me. As a lower income family, I wasn't able to be a stay at home mom, which is one of the other things suggested by this man, however the "vocabulary" in my home isn't much different from the vocabulary of a higher income family. Also, as a savvy mom, I read all the books that said to read to your babies while in the womb, especially poetry, because the repeat words and structure of poetry will help them when they get older. I played classical music while they slept, because Mozart makes babies smarter. I read while they were in the womb, while they were infants and well into the toddler years. While holding my daughter and feeding her a bottle, or while nursing my son, I pulled out a book and read it to them, in the hopes that language would be no problem for either one of them.
Now, how many people actually do that regardless of income?
So, with that being said, both of my children have needed help in the reading & spelling department. My 14 year old daughter can't spell to save her life and struggled with reading, my 6 yr old son, didn't speak for the first two years of his life and had to go into speech therapy to get him to talk. He also struggles with reading though he is doing better than my daughter did.

My point in all this? I think that the stereotype of a lower income family being unable to do for their children as well as a higher income family can is ludicrous, and that children develop differently no matter how they are raised. No matter what you do! How many successful children have we seen come out of poverty? How many who didn't have the love of either parent or support grow up to be successful, smart, prosperous adults? And how many higher income children have we seen grow up to be delinquents? I think these studies need to stop, and that schools shouldn't base their teachings upon them. They should not be taken into consideration when it comes to funding or lesson plans. Children will learn as they want, as their hearts and desires will take them, no matter what the parents will is.

I have tried to force my children into being something they were not. Now, we are taking a step back and allowing them to learn it the best way they can. No child is cookie cutter, no study is ever going to determine or be able to group them into a class when it comes to education. We just need to love and support our children the best way we know how. :)