Halloween is the modern name of the ancient Irish and Scottish holiday of Samhain (pronounced SOW-win), a Celtic-Gaelic word meaning “summers-end”. It begins at dusk on October 31, and marks the doorway to the dark half of the Celtic year, the opening of a new cycle.In the 7th-century CE the Pope established All Saints’ Day, originally on May 13, and in the following century it was moved to November 1. The evening before All Saints’ Day became a holy, or hallowed, eve and thus Samhain became Halloween.
The Reformation put an end to the religious holiday among Protestants, although in Britain Halloween continued to be celebrated as a secular holiday. The celebration of Halloween was mostly forbidden among the early American colonists, until the 1800s.
Agenda:
1. Make a costume
2. Carve a pumpkin
3. Trick or Treats
Originally, folks probably dressed in costumes and masks at Samhain to scare off any spirits that were bad. Now we do it because it's fun!
This year I am a wizard - again.
2. Carve a pumpkin
Pumpkins didn't grow in Ireland or Scotland, but early Celts carved the images of spirit-guardians onto turnips and set these jack-o'lanterns before their doors to keep out the unwelcome visitors from the otherworld.
When Irish immigrants came to the US during the potato famine, in the middle of the 19th-century, they brought this custom with them, but we had pumpkins here.
Pumpkin carving together as a family is Medicine Art, a thanksgiving for pumpkins and for family.
3. Trick or Treats:
This year we get to train up a new trick-or-treater! It's a right of passage ceremony, really - you are deemed old enough now, at the ripe age of 2-1/2, to walk up to the doors of strangers and ask for candy.We will practice the etiquette and protocols today: How to safely climb the steps, knock on the door, say "Trick or Treat" (that will be a stretch), and pick out ONE candy, then say Thank-you".
Dunk for apples:
Not a good idea during a pandemic, but the photo is too cute to leave off.
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