Why I Still Love Halloween

For many baby boomers, Halloween may conjure up images and memories of a more innocent time. Clearly it does for writer Cindy La Ferle who shares this essay about Halloween from her book, Writing Home.

“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.” ~George Carlin

Halloween always stirs a cauldron of memories for nostalgic baby boomers. Who could forget trick-or-treating with packs of neighborhood pals until our pillowcases were too heavy to haul around the block? In the early 1960s, All Hallow’s Eve was spun of pure magic. Ordinary suburban streets morphed into riotous carnivals ruled by tiny goblins, sheet-clad ghosts, bearded hobos, and Superman wannabes.

Thanks to those of us who’ve shared favorite Halloween traditions with our own kids, the “season of the witch” now competes with Christmastime as the biggest party season of the year. And while Halloween superstores are marketing polyester pirate costumes and ready-made graveyard decor, I suspect that what most of us still enjoy about this evocative fall holiday is the creativity factor.

As the cooler weather nudges everyone back indoors, I’m inspired to dress the mantel with autumn leaves, miniature pumpkins, paper skeletons, and fallen branches from the back yard. And of course, I start planning my costume weeks in advance.

Stepping over age limits, Halloween extends an open invitation to play dress-up. It prompts us to raid attics and local thrift shops for the most outlandish outfits we can jumble together. If only for one magical night, it gives grown-ups permission to drop the dull disguise of conformity.

For wardrobe junkies like me, Halloween is reason enough to hoard vintage clothing and junk jewelry that should have been donated to charity ages ago. My husband now refers to our attic as “the costume museum”– and with good reason. Friends who have trouble rustling up an outfit will often call for help during dress-up emergencies. Over the years, I’ve collected so many crazy hats that we have to store them in a large steamer trunk behind the living room couch. Those hats get the most wear near Halloween, when even the most reserved engineer who visits will wear a pith helmet or a plumed pirate hat to the dinner table.

And why not?

Historically, the holiday has always been a celebration of the harvest, a madcap prelude to the more dignified ceremonials of Thanksgiving.
Halloween’s roots weave back more than 2,000 years to the Celts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It was originally known as the festival of Samhain, according to Caitlin Matthews, a Celtic scholar and author of The Celtic Book of Days (Destiny Books). The festival, she explains, marked the end of the farming season and the beginning of the Celtic new year. Banquet tables were prepared to honor the ancestors, who were believed to pierce the veil between the living and the dead on the eve of Samhain. It was also time to rekindle the bonfires that would sustain the clans in winter.

“In the Christian era,” Matthews writes, “the festival was reassigned to the Feast of All Saints,” yet the “ghosts” of its former customs and rituals refused to vanish.

And we can thank our Irish immigrants for the jack-o’-lantern, which reputedly wards off evil spirits. This custom evolved from the old practice of carving out large turnips and squash, then illuminating them with candles. The term jack-o’-lantern was derived from a folk tale involving a crafty Irishman named Jack, who outwitted the Devil.

On cool autumn nights, when the moon is bright and leaves scatter nervously across the sidewalk, a bittersweet chill runs up and down my spine.

Like my own Celtic ancestors, I’m moved to take stock of how much I’ve accomplished throughout the year, and how many things I’ve left undone. My to-do list is very long. There are parts of the world I haven’t seen; stories I haven’t written; debts and favors to repay. I marvel at the mellow beauty of the Halloween season, but also feel a little sad that one more year is drawing to its close. Now that I’m in midlife, there’s a subtle sense of urgency tugging at the sleeve of my costume.
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Parts of the essay were excerpted from Cindy La Ferle’s award-winning essay collection, Writing Home, available on Amazon.com. Visit www.laferle.com for more information.

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