I talked to my Grandson about Halloween

The other day my Grandson asked me about Halloween. “Granddaddy, why don’t you do Halloween?”

What a tricky spot! I know there are those who would consider this a good time for a tirade against the evils of Halloween, but he’s 9. And his family does Halloween.

Instantly my mind was filled with all kinds of thoughts. The history of Halloween and all of our reasons for not participating.

Halloween began as a Celtic celebration, Samhain. November 1 marked the beginning of the new year for the Celts (especially of Ireland) and this was a period of “no time” for them, with the climax on October 31 (their days began with evening, so the night of October 31 was for them the beginning of November 1). This was a time when the spirits of the dead would roam the country side. The people would light bonfires so they could see. They would also have lanterns made from pumpkins and other gourds. Offerings (treats) would also be left out for these spirits so that they would not do mischief (tricks) etc.

The Catholic Church (this is not an attack on Catholics, they were the only church in the area at the time!), in an attempt to aid the full conversion of the Irish and English, offered the first alternative. They moved All Saints Day to November 1st. In those days All Saints Day was known as All Hallows Day, hallow being the Old English word for holy. Since for both the Celts and Anglo-Saxons the day begins the night before, that made October 31 All Hallows Evening, shortened to All Hallows e’en. I mean, if you are going to remember the dead, why not dead saints, right? This idea obviously did not really work.

All this went through my head. How much of this will he understand? How do I answer his question and honor his parents who allow him to participate in Halloween?

Finally, I said, “Well, since you asked . . .” I simply explained that Halloween emphasizes death and witches and spirits and we didn’t want to do that so we didn’t take part. “Didn’t you go trick or treating when you were a kid?” “Yes, we did.” I didn’t tell him that we did a lot of tricking too.

After my brief explanation he replied, “I don’t do any of the witches and spirits. I’m just having fun.” I said I knew that and tried to emphasize that we weren’t saying we were better than anybody or that people were bad because they did Halloween, that was simply the way we tried to honor the Lord. This led into another discussion about the original Santa Claus, St. Nicholas. We’ve talked about Nicholas a lot lately.

I also told him that we used to offer an alternative and called it Fall Festival. He had only heard about Trunk or Treat and asked about that. He probably knows more about that than I do. I told him that we used to have a big party at church: we would have games and candy, a big fire, cook hot dogs and make s’mores, and have a hay ride. Those were a lot of fun. (I know there are people who are so opposed to Halloween that they oppose the Fall Festival as well. And that’s fine. We just need to walk in love toward one another.)

Anyway, I tried to answer his question and explain why we didn’t do Halloween without making him feel bad or his parents look bad. He asked me if I was working on Halloween and I told him, “I work every Halloween.” Then I found out Tuesday night that I am off! Yeah! I hate working Halloween, one of the three biggest drinking nights in Rock Hill. When I called to tell him I was off, he asked me to go trick or treating with him! How do I get myself into these spots??