Sweet Samhain

Today is Halloween. For the most part, our neighborhood is decorated for celebration: yards are bedecked with giant inflatable ghosts, houses are strung with blinking orange and black lights, and jack o'lanterns are perched like watchmen on front steps. The kids have been discussing their costumes with their friends for weeks and diligently scoping the candy aisle at the grocery store, cataloging available goodies and deciding ahead of time what they're hoping to receive when it comes time to trick-or-treat.

But there are the few houses that remain unadorned, that the kids will race past tonight, whose porch lights will not be on, whose owners will not be delighting in the clever or cute or frightening costumes, who will not be handing out candy to the eager and anxious neighbor kids. It makes me wonder: why?

Perhaps it's the economy. Times are tough and, when making decisions about which bills to pay, buying a bag or two of candy might seem like a frivolous and unnecessary purchase. I get that. Or perhaps those people have plans for tonight and know they will not be home to celebrate; maybe they chose not to decorate because they don't want kids to assume treats are waiting.

But part of me wonders if it is something else. I wonder how much of it is due to the belief that Halloween is a pagan holiday, something evil, something that shouldn't be celebrated.

Halloween does have pagan roots. I don't think anyone can deny that. Samhain (pronounced "sow-en", the Scottish Gaelic word for summer's end) was the traditional time to celebrate the ending of the Light Half of the year and the beginning of the Dark Half. It was a time of reflection and celebration, a time to spend with family and friends, a time to honor and remember those who had already left this life. The Church melded its own beliefs and rituals to this holiday, creating Hallowmas -- All Saints' Day. Their intention was to have people celebrate this holiday only; however, the original customs persisted.

I'm not going to delve into more of the history here; there are enough websites out there with far more thoroughly researched information than what I can provide. But what I do know, what I do believe, is that Halloween -- Samhain -- is not evil. Nor are its pagan roots.

In our house, we do a variety of things to celebrate this transition in the year. Despite the fact that it is not the meteorological equinox, I do see it as a clear delineator between the two halves of the year. The days are markedly colder and shorter, the trees have all but lost their leaves...winter is imminent. Using apples and pumpkin and other harvest foods, I bake as a way to celebrate: breads and muffins and other delicious treats to freeze and savor later. And I feel the shift inside of me, tiny deaths that always leave me a little melancholy.

At this time of transition, I do believe that the veil between this world and the spirit world is fragile and thin. We remember our loved ones who have passed on by setting up an Altar of Remembrance, complete with photos and notes and small gifts, too, should their spirits pass through during this time. It is a time to reflect, for us to talk about the friends and family missing from this life, gone but not forgotten. It is a heartwarming time, knowing their memories live on within us. And it is special to have a time set aside to do this, to create a beautiful and meaningful tradition that we can look forward to, year and year.

But we dress up, too. And we carve pumpkins and read silly Halloween stories and go trick-or-treating and embrace the new meanings of Halloween, what the old customs have morphed into. We celebrate the fact that it is a time for other barriers to become thin and fragile, the barriers between adults and kids. Think about it: on Halloween night, kids let down their guard just a bit and learn that the nameless neighbors can be OK. Adults let down their guard and learn that the neighbor kids are not always just a loud-mouthed group of hooligans: they can be sweet and endearing, or clever or frightful, in their costumes. And with donning a costume, kids and adults alike can let down the barriers of who they are; for one day, they can become someone or something else. This veil, the one between reality and fantasy, becomes thin and fragile, too.

I like to think that the barrier between Christians and non-Christians becomes thin, too. That people can see Samhain for what it is meant to be -- a time of transition -- and not something wicked or evil. In its purest form, this celebration is simply a way to recognize the turning of the year and loved ones who have left this life. A decidedly sweet celebration, I think.