Halloween is the day we dress our kids up in costumes and set them loose on the neighbors to get sugared up. It is a pagan holiday, a work of the devil, that no good Christian should consider allowing their children to participate in. Samhain is a day to celebrate our ancestors, a day when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest. It is a holy day to be respected and honored. Do you know what else Halloween/Samhain is? It is the one day of the year when it is okay to take candy from strangers.
Think about that. Really think about it. It is the only day of the year where it is not only acceptable, but expected, to go up to strangers houses and not only accept candy, but ask for it! As parents we worry about strangers. We teach our children to avoid them, to not take things from them, to not go places with them. Here, this one exceptional day of the year, all that goes away. We become a caring and supportive community. We welcome our neighbors to our houses. We smile and talk with total strangers. Everyone watches out for everyone else.
True, we still check the candy stash for dangers and there are pranks and tricks because the bad apples always have to show themselves, but overall Halloween allows our expansive, crowded, strictly paranoid society to let down our collective guard for one evening. It allows us to go back to the kindness and friendliness of the small village where we knew and could trust our neighbors. A time when children were set loose after school and simply expected home by dinner, where even if the parents were not right there they knew their children would be safe.. Halloween is a day that allows us to remember our humanity and remember that the community around us in composed of humans too, not some scary “other.”
Wouldn't it be nice if it were Halloween everyday?
