DID YOU KNOW?: Halloween

Hallowe'en, a contraction of "All Hallows´ Evening", is a celebration observed in many countries on 31st October, that is All Saints´ Eve. 

This festival is related with an ancient celtic harvest festival with pagan roots, the Gaelic festival Samhain. Some scholars understand that during the Christianization period many festivals were adapted or influenced by pagan ones in order to make it easier to understand and accept the new faith.

The festivity of All Saints was introduced in the year 609 by the Christian Church but was originally on 13th May, as Lemur, an ancient Roman festival of the dead. Then, in 835, it was switched to 1st November, as Samhain, the Gaelic festival, by Pope Gregory IV. Since the primitive Church, the main feasts have vigils which began the night before. Therefore, All Saints´ Day has its vigil too, and this one coincided with Samhain.

Including All Souls´ Day (2nd Nov.),  All Saints´ Day (1st Nov.) and its eve (31st Oct.), these three days are all known as Allhallowtide. For the Christian Church, this period in the liturgical year is dedicated to remembering the dead, saints (also called hallows), martyrs and departed believers.

Nowadays, activities for celebrating Halloween include wearing costumes, decorating, parades, playing pranks, trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, scary games, apple bobbing, telling scary stories, visiting haunted attraction...etc... The Christian religious observances include visiting graveyards and cemeteries, attending church services, lighting candles and putting flowers on the graves of the dead; in some cases even abstinence from meat, as they did in the past which is the origin of many traditional recipes and vegetarian food consumption such as potato pancakes, soul pancakes, bonfire toffee, toffee apple, cider colcannon, barmbrack, monkey nuts, pumpkin pie, roasted pumpkin seeds, roasted sweet corn or candy corn ...etc...

Sadly, we have to admit that consumerism led us to forget about the origins of all these and take part in this big business. In US, $6 billion are spent in costumes and candy in Halloween making it the second most comercial holiday after Christmas.