Today is Halloween, but do you
really know why? I didn’t think so; that is yet another reason you follow this
blog – all the surprisingly interesting (at times useless) bits of important
information, just for you. So let’s look at Halloween, I dare you…
Halloween is listed as an annual holiday. I am not sure I’d agree as I find nothing “holy” about it – really. The origin goes back to the Dark Ages and the Celtic festival of Samhain, meaning honoring the dead; also an old Irish medieval meaning is “summer’s end”.
Some Christian monks wrote this Irish myth-thing back in the tenth century and the Scottish made a variant of “all-hallows-evening” in the sixteenth century. But all this is boring; so where the heck is the candy, dude?
It was called “begging” back then. Jack-O’-Lanterns (actually named after somebody named Jack - go figure) were carved out of turnips – imagine that; hard to compete with today’s 60 pound pumpkins, huh? Now the begging is called “trick or treating”; sounds better when small children in weird outfits stand in front of you announcing that if they don’t get a treat they’ll hurt you or your property – well, that’s what it means. So we fork over some candy to make them go away. It’s like a Mafioso protection program, but initiated by small people without real guns – I hope. When considering that approximately 36 million kids T & T each year, we recognize that they are collectively a lot stronger than the Mafia – seriously. So why do the kids wear costumes, you may ask? You'd fail to pick them out of a police line-up of course - duh.
My theory is that with all the candy involved, this whole Halloween thing is a conspiracy initiated by the ADA. Yes you read correctly, the American Dental Association. My dentist (and you know who you are) is stretching this candy issue beyond Halloween as every kid with a good check-up gets a lollipop; with a great check-up, they get two. But it is actually still in the spirit of Halloween as in scary and evil, wouldn’t you say? “Cavity-Pops”, they should be called.
The pumpkin deal was brought on by immigrants to the USA back in 1837, as pumpkins were readily available and bigger, therefore easier to carve out with a chain-saw - so out went the turnips.
Halloween is listed as an annual holiday. I am not sure I’d agree as I find nothing “holy” about it – really. The origin goes back to the Dark Ages and the Celtic festival of Samhain, meaning honoring the dead; also an old Irish medieval meaning is “summer’s end”.
Some Christian monks wrote this Irish myth-thing back in the tenth century and the Scottish made a variant of “all-hallows-evening” in the sixteenth century. But all this is boring; so where the heck is the candy, dude?
It was called “begging” back then. Jack-O’-Lanterns (actually named after somebody named Jack - go figure) were carved out of turnips – imagine that; hard to compete with today’s 60 pound pumpkins, huh? Now the begging is called “trick or treating”; sounds better when small children in weird outfits stand in front of you announcing that if they don’t get a treat they’ll hurt you or your property – well, that’s what it means. So we fork over some candy to make them go away. It’s like a Mafioso protection program, but initiated by small people without real guns – I hope. When considering that approximately 36 million kids T & T each year, we recognize that they are collectively a lot stronger than the Mafia – seriously. So why do the kids wear costumes, you may ask? You'd fail to pick them out of a police line-up of course - duh.
My theory is that with all the candy involved, this whole Halloween thing is a conspiracy initiated by the ADA. Yes you read correctly, the American Dental Association. My dentist (and you know who you are) is stretching this candy issue beyond Halloween as every kid with a good check-up gets a lollipop; with a great check-up, they get two. But it is actually still in the spirit of Halloween as in scary and evil, wouldn’t you say? “Cavity-Pops”, they should be called.
The pumpkin deal was brought on by immigrants to the USA back in 1837, as pumpkins were readily available and bigger, therefore easier to carve out with a chain-saw - so out went the turnips.
The trick or treating began
door-to-door back in 1911 and has pretty much been annoying ever since.
Costume categories started out with ghosts (remember: honoring the dead?), monsters, skeletons, witches and devils. Now it’s dominated by popular fiction figures, celebrities and Sara Palin (who actually brings it back to the original costume categories).
Halloween’s favorite colors are orange and black. And please explain to me why “bobbing for apples” is the thing to do on Halloween?
And while we are at it: did you know that each American eats an average of 25 pounds of candy every year? Probably 20 of those pounds on October 31st, huh?
998 million pounds of pumpkins are produced annually. Now really, how do they know or is this just a wild guess? It’ll be cool when they hit one billion…
I have never understood the: “Trick or treat, smell my feet; give me something good to eat”. Why would I have any interest in smelling the feet of a 6 year old boy dressed as Sara Palin? And “give me something good to eat” is an outright false demand. Try to give those little monsters and ballerinas Brussels sprouts and carrots, and they WILL hurt your family – true story.
Through the years I have yet again rolled out my cynicism, being against small kids begging for cavities and candy (not in that order, but it sounds better). I am against opening the front door on Halloween. But gentle reader, I do open the door and I do see these little kids in costumes and big smiles of excitement. I have to admit that they are cute – really. So they expect candy and lots of it; and due to the “trick” part you dare not go against their demands, or they might force you to smell their feet - a very scary thought.
Here is something you can try any Halloween: The doorbell rings, you get up and open and there they are, holding out their open goodie-bags, innocently threatening you. Then you say, while sticking your empty hand into their bags: “That is so nice of you to bring me candy – how many pieces can I have?” Their facial expressions turn priceless – really. They switch from smiles to confusion to total horror if you actually dare remove anything from their bags. I normally grab a handful, quickly close the door and turn out the lights; but you can still hear them cry. Remember that Halloween has something to do with evil, so I’m just doing my part. Gotta problem with that, huh? Nah, I’m a bit of a softy so the above is more like a juicy fantasy.
We have not bought a lot of candy this year, as last year, not that many came knocking. Maybe rumors had spread about the candy grabbing monster on Main Street. So all in all it worked; but now I miss them, those little angels, witches, cowboys, ballerinas and Sara Palins, threatening to hurt me if I don’t fork over some candy. I do hope they all have clean feet when they come knocking on our door - just in case...
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