17 October 2014

Its almost Halloween!!!

17 October 2014
Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related “guising”), attending costume parties, decorating, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted house attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films.

Within allhallowtide, the traditional focus of All Hallows’ Eve revolves around the theme of using “humor and ridicule to confront the power of death.” Growing up I remember that it was customary to get dressed at home and go into school in full costume and the funny part about that is it seemed that kids were more themselves dressing up in costume than how they would be on just any old school day.

The word Halloween or Hallowe’en dates to about 1745 and is of Christian origin. The word “Halloween” means “hallowed evening” or “holy evening”. Today’s Halloween customs are also thought to have been influenced by Christian dogma and practices derived from it. In medieval Europe, “fires were lit to guide these souls on their way and deflect them from haunting honest Christian folk, a practice that some Christians continue in Halloween celebrations today with jack-o-lanterns. Folklorist Kingsley Palmer, in addition to others, has suggested that the carved jack-o’-lantern, a popular symbol of Halloween, originally represented the souls of the dead.

In addition, “it was customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls.

Happy Halloween Y’all!!!

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