Updated version of this article.
Every year on Halloween night, one of my neighbors puts a sign in her window: “NO CANDY. We are Christians. We do not celebrate Halloween.” So far none of my kids has remarked on this sign that I can recall. In particular, they have never asked, “But aren’t we Christians? . . . Is it wrong to trick-or-treat?” I’m glad. But I admit this neighbor’s sign has left me feeling slightly guilty every year, as if I should slink away with my jacket over head.
If you have mixed feelings about Halloween, you’re not alone. Many Catholic parents are confused or torn about Halloween. Should we participate? Is Halloween intrinsically evil? What’s with the ghosts and witches? Where does all this stuff come from?
Frankly, throughout my mothering, I’ve experienced very mixed feelings about Halloween. I love the harvest atmosphere of many Halloween parties and events, but the whole sub-culture around Halloween seems to become increasingly dark each year.
A few years ago I went into a Halloween costume shop to get my daughter a Wizard of Oz Dorothy costume, and I saw mechanical zombie babies with blood oozing from their eyes. Not funny or interesting; just creepy and disturbing. Young people are becoming increasingly drawn to anything related to the “undead” – zombies, vampires, etc. It’s weird.
Yet, every year, I’m at this place again where my kids are excited about Halloween, and they draw me into their wonder. They begin planning and talking about their Halloween costumes in early September, sometimes earlier. They even plan costumes for our dog and take her out trick or treating. There is nothing scary or disturbing about a Labradoodle in a bumble bee costume! (At least not to humans . . . I’m not sure what Labradoodles think about it.)
My children bring their creative energy to their costumes. I rarely need to buy store-bought costumes for them; they seem to come up with their own ideas and cobble together something fun. One year, my daughter Claire made a dog costume from scratch. She even made the head out of foam, faux fur, and many, many hot glue sticks!
Another year, my oldest son Aidan went as “a knight who says NI” from Monty Python’s Holy Grail. He spent a great deal of time putting his costume together from bits and pieces he found at our local craft store. He was too old to trick-or-treat with us, but he wore his costume and walked around with us on Halloween night. He never assumed he would get candy, but one homeowner asked him what his costume was. When Aidan told him, the man’s face lit up, and he said, “You’re a teenager who likes The Holy Grail? Here, take it all” and he gave Aidan his entire bucket of candy!
Does Halloween Have Pagan Origins?
Despite all this creativity, for many years I wished I could eliminate Halloween from our home. I have Catholic friends who, like my neighbor, believe it’s evil and to be avoided entirely. But I just couldn’t cancel Halloween. Despite my mixed feelings, I always let my kids dress up and go trick-or-treating. If I had done so, I would have missed many wonderful family memories.
So, yes, my family “celebrates” Halloween. I’m sorry my neighbor shuts her blinds and doesn’t want to say hello to my children on October 31. I wish she knew that, in fact, Halloween has its roots in Christianity.
That’s right.
I learned some years ago that Halloween is historically quite simply the vigil of All Saints Day, or “All Hallows Eve.” Here is a superb article by Scott Richert, executive editor at Our Sunday Visitor, explaining that Halloween is not rooted in paganism as many parents fear:
“Despite concerns among some Catholics and other Christians in recent years about the ‘pagan origins’ of Halloween, there really are none. The first attempts to show some connection between the vigil of All Saints and the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain came over a thousand years after All Saints Day became a universal feast, and there’s no evidence whatsoever that Gregory III or Gregory IV was even aware of Samhain.
In Celtic peasant culture, however, elements of the harvest festival survived, even among Christians, just as the Christmas tree owes its origins to pre-Christian Germanic traditions without being a pagan ritual.
The Celtic elements included lighting bonfires, carving turnips (and, in America, pumpkins), and going from house to house, collecting treats, as carolers do at Christmas. But the “occult” aspects of Halloween—ghosts and demons—actually have their roots in Catholic belief. Christians believed that, at certain times of the year (Christmas is another), the veil separating earth from Purgatory, Heaven, and even Hell becomes more thin, and the souls in Purgatory (ghosts) and demons can be more readily seen. Thus the tradition of Halloween costumes owes as much, if not more, to Christian belief as to Celtic tradition.”
So, not only is Halloween a Christian observance, but even some of the scary stuff that bothers me – specifically ghosts and demons – has some link to Christianity. So, if you have skeleton decorations on your front door, I get it now!
Note that witches are not part of this history. Apparently a greeting card company added witches to their Halloween cards in the late 19th century. This fact is noted in the Dominican video linked below.
So, I guess I’ll continue letting my kids dress up and trick-or-treat on October 31. I think my observation about American culture around Halloween still holds: why are Americans so obsessed with vampires, zombies, and the undead? It’s one thing to recognize the inevitability of death and to remember the dead, and quite another to idolize demons and evil creatures. I think on some level young people who are caught up in these things know that there is something more beyond this life, that it is only one short chapter in a journey and a sliver of some greater truth. It’s unfortunate they are not given the freedom to surrender to the whole truth and promise of salvation and God’s love. Now that’s really scary.
Resources
The Catholic History of Halloween. Interesting and informative YouTube video by a Dominican priest, Fr. Brad Elliott.
Image credit: rawpixelimages (Dreamstime)