Just what is Halloween?

It is no secret.  I have always loved Halloween.  I love to be scared, I love to do the scaring, I love the candy.  Say it with me, "FREE CANDY"!!  I love to play dress up.  I wish there were more dress up holidays!  I love Halloween.
Yet, it really wasn't until I moved to New Mexico that Halloween was presented with a negative image.  Where my biggest fear used to be healthy treats or bag snatchers, here I was told to watch out for my soul!!
So, when things puzzle me, I research.  Never having been content with a simple answer, and never having been content to follow the norm, I probed.  I found some very interesting stuff.  I would note it all in a nice bibliography complete with foot notes, but I do my reading in and around kid stuff.  That, and I was once told by an English teacher to stamp out all footnotes before they could breed.
Here is what I discovered.  Yes, Halloween is traditionally around the same time as Samhain, a wiccan holiday. Now, here is why. 
Halloween, or All Hallows Even, is a Catholic holiday.  Did you see that coming?  It is before All Saint's Day (all good Catholics must go to mass on Nov 1).  That evening or eve, good Catholics (yes, those early Christians) would light candles and go door to door offering to pray for the dead and those in purgatory.  Those doing the praying would get a "treat", something called a soul cake. I am betting it wasn't chocolate based.
Also, many people would dress up, or act as "mummers" and act out the lives or their favorite saints.  Remember, this was before baseball trading cards and comic books. 
Now, why near the pagan holiday....bear with me.
Early Catholic missionaries ran into problems with the early Celts and Brits.  Even the Norse.  Stubborn, stubborn hide bound people.  So the early monks did a bit of, hmmm, blending.  They wanted people to feel comfortable in this new fangeled religion (tell me again, the guy died for me?) where there was only one God!!  Whoooaaaaa!  So, some early pagan traditions were included in early Christianity.  Fish on Fridays?  Freya the Norse goddess had her holy day on Friday and her symbol was...the fish.  St. Brigid?  She was the Celtic goddess of healing and letters.  It is a fascinating thing to read up one (yes, I am a self confessed nerd).
So, Halloween, All Hallow's Even, was set at Samhain, to give the pagans a sense of continuation.  I bet it also drew in all of those wild young folk who were just jumping at the chance to join those crazy Christians!
Also, the calender that was used then, not so good.  Most people couldn't count past ten, less if they were missing fingers.  Keeping track of anything beyond a lunar calender was rare.  The priest were often not even literate.  The had memorized the Bible.
Let us also consider the time of year.  Harvest is just now over.  People have been working seriously hard hours to prepare for winter.  There was a mini Ice Age in progress, winter was cold, seriously so.  The earth would be tilting her face and the days would have shrunk.  Night had a long hold.  No electric lights.  No modern medicines.  It was likely that a sizable percentage of the community would die.  For reasons that the people really couldn't understand.
So, like any human, they took a fear, and celebrated it.  They brought fear out into the light.  The partied, they laughed, they snacked.
The more you laugh at your fears, the harder it is for those fears to seize you.  I say this as I still have a lingering fear of that stupid clown from "Poltergeist" to grab my ankles from under the bed.

So, in review.  Halloween can be what you make of it.  You can look at it's pagan roots and turn away from it.  Or you can admit that it also has Christian roots.  That it is also a silly Hallmark Holiday, complete with stale TV specials and early merchandising.
But in the end, please, oh pretty please remember: FREE CANDY!