Children and adults alike celebrate it by dressing up in fancy-dress costumes. They do however celebrate it very differently. Men and women who celebrate Halloween will dress up as superheroes or nurses and go out drinking beer. Children meanwhile will dress up as fairies, ghosts and ghouls and go out trick or treating and will usually get a bucket of sweets as a reward.
This explanation of what people do on Halloween doesn’t explain what Halloween is. In fact the origins of Halloween dates back 2,000 years. It was our Welsh ancestors, the Celts, that first celebrated it as a festival as they held feasts to celebrate the end of the harvest season.It was during the festival that they believed that the spirit of the dead roamed the earth; they would also exchange ghost stories at the feasts.
It was in the 8th century that some Roman Catholics began celebrating All Hallows Day on the 1st November. The day before that became known as All Hallows Eve (a bit like Christmas Eve). Although All Hallows Eve was later shortened to Halloween.
The Roman Catholic Empire was very good at plagiarising other cultures. They first stole the Greek gods, then Christianity and then Halloween was transformed into a festival similar to the one that Celts celebrated.
We can thank naughty American children for the tradition of Trick and Treat. In the 1930’schildren caused mayhem in their neighborhoods by knocking over mailboxes, damaging property and tipping over cows on Halloween. So the homeowners responded by bribing the naughty kids with money and candy so they would not damage their properties. By the1960s dressing up in costumes and knocking door to door proclaiming trick or treat was anew Halloween tradition that spread across the US and eventually to Llanelli too.
So did we know that we were celebrating a Christian festival like Christmas or Easter when we were dressed up as Harry Potter or a fairy, while visiting our neighbours in the hope of getting a handful of sweets. I certainly didn’t know before researching Halloween.
Halloween might be cancelled this year due to the Welsh firebreak lockdown. But that won’t stop us enjoying the time with our children or friends over video call. So put Hocus Pocus on the telly to watch or dress up in some fancy dress just for the fun of it. If you didn’t manage to buy a costume this year before lockdown, put a bedsheet on your head and pretend to be a ghost, I guarantee the kids will love it.
Happy All Hallows Eve folks!
