Trick or Treat!

"Trick or treat . . . smell my feet . . . give me something good to eat . . . if you don't . . . I don't care  . . . I'll pull down your underwear."

Halloween is my all-time favorite Holiday.  I love everything about it; the candy, dressing up, decorations and decorating, carving pumpkins AND scary movies. 

Did you know that Halloween is fairly new to America?   It actually became popular in America in the early 1900s.  Originally called Samhain (which means summer’s end in Gaelic) it is a Gaelic harvest festival held on October 31st - November 1st.  This date was associated with the Catholic All Saints' Day from as early as the 8th Century.  And the secular customs that are now connected with Halloween have been influenced by both the Gaelic and the Catholic liturgical festival. 

It’s said, that during Samhain, the veil between our world and the spirit world is at its thinnest.  And the ghosts of the deceased can mingle with the living. 

Today’s Halloween traditions evolved from the ancient symbols of Samhain.  One example of that is Celtics carved turnips into skulls.  They placed these carved turnips in their windows to ward off evil.  This tradition evolved into today’s jack-o-lanterns.

Below are a few Halloween superstitions, folklore and a phobia:

• If you hear footsteps behind you while you’re walking on Halloween, DO NOT turn around . . .  if you do, you may be staring Death in the face.
• If you want to run into a witch on Halloween, a sure-fire way to do this is by wearing your clothes inside out and walk backwards.
• If you are born on Halloween, you will have the gift of communicating with the dead.
• If you feel a chill up your spine, someone is walking on your future grave.
• A medieval superstition that is still around today; doorbells, chimes or any type of bells ringing are supposed to chase away evil spirits.
• Walk around your home three times counterclockwise and backwards before sunset on Halloween to ward off evil spirits.
• For the Ladies, if you carry a lamp to a spring of water on Halloween night, you can see your future husband in the reflection.
• Place a burning candle inside a jack-o-lantern on Halloween to keep evil spirits and demons at bay.
• Cucurbitophobia is the fear of pumpkins.

And here are some neat U.S. Halloween facts:

• Halloween is the Holiday when the most candy is sold.
• Halloween is the second most commercially successful Holiday; Christmas being the first.
• Halloween is the third-largest party occasion next to Christmas and New Year's Eve.
• There are approximately 25 million Halloween cards sold annually.
• The top four states for pumpkin production are Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California.

I'll end my blog with a short (but cute) Halloween poem:

"We mask our faces
and wear strange hats,
and moan like witches
and screech like cats,
and jump like goblins
and thump like elves,
and almost manage
to scare ourselves!"
~Author Unknown

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!