H-A-DOUBLE L-O-W-DOUBLE E-N....

Halloween is magical, at least to me. There's a spellbinding aspect about this holiday that gets me giddy as a school girl. Walking into homegoods stores and seeing the bounty of spooky ceramics, dolls, trinkets, and wall hangings brightens my round little face. The chill in the air and the crisp leaves falling from the skeleton boughs above them are timeless. The change of season is my favorite of the year, but there's one main component that adds to my adoration of this season. Halloween.

Other holidays have lost a lot of their appeal to me. Christmas is taken over by consumerism, St. Patty's by mass alcohol consumption, Easter way too much pastel! But Halloween still retains its age old magic, traditions, and mystery. There's a communion with nature, magic, mystery, terror, spirituality, and the unknown that can never be explained fully or taken away from my love. That doesn't mean I don't want to figure out why I feel this way for my beloved season, so I turn to books.

Lesley Pratt Bannatyne, wrote Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History and gave a well written, concise history of where Halloween came from and how it transformed into the holiday we know and love in contemporary times. The Celts were the first to celebrate what we envision as Halloween. Their Festival of Samhain, lord of the dead, was a late autumn festival during which the Celts celebrated the dead and the beginning of winter, the spirit season. Villagers offered sweets to appease mischievous spirits, or for more harmful, evil spirits, villagers dressed up as ghouls and led a parade out of the village to trick the spirits into leaving. See some similarities? Of course, witches are a major part of the holiday because practitioners were able to practice their craft at a higher level during this spiritual season. Once Christianity came, the leaders of the church put in new holy days where the old pagan celebrations originally set. Thus began All Saints and All Souls Day. People made soul cakes for these days and gave them to the poor. Soon boys and the poor began going door from door begging for soul cakes.

Come colonial times, the pagan traditions were set aside, at least in their out and out format, but harvest festivities and Guy Fawkes day were passable. As religious fervor calmed, the traditions came back and new ones were born. Halloween took on romantic aspects. Girls used superstitions and divination to learn who their future husband would be. Ghost stories were told and came from regional tales and cultural backgrounds.

During the 20th century, Halloween became a national holiday, but the trick part of trick-or-treat became a little too mischievous for communities. In an effort to divert trickster children causing property damage on this night, communities began holding parties for kids. From here, our Halloween parties, trick-or-treating, and the treats, tricks, and costumes all fell in place from the old world, to the new traditions.

Lesley's book was informative without being overly detailed about everything. She didn't use scholarly terms that are such a turn off unless you're doing heavy research. I thought this book was a great source for my Halloween history. I'm still ever so curious about the pagan routes of the holiday. Witches, bats, black cats, fairies, ghouls, and ghosts are the eerie, mysterious part of the season that haunt me and leave me wanting more. It may be a bit early to be thinking about Halloween, but I like to live up the season while it's still around.