Did you know that Halloween is one of the oldest holidays still celebrated in many places of the world today? Halloween takes place on 31 October which is also the last day of the Celtic calendar. It was originally a pagan holiday, honoring the dead. Halloween was referred to as All Hallows Eve and dates back to over 2000 years ago.
Halloween culture can be traced back to the Druids, a Celtic culture in Ireland, Britain and Northern Europe. Roots lay in the feast of Samhain, which was annually on October 31st to honor the dead.
Samhain signifies “summers end” or November. Samhain was a harvest festival with huge sacred bonfires, marking the end of the Celtic year and beginning of a new one. Many of the practices involved in this celebration were fed on superstition.
The Celts believed the souls of the dead roamed the streets and villages at night. Since not all spirits were thought to be friendly, gifts and treats were left out to pacify the evil and ensure next years crops would be plentiful. This custom evolved into trick-or-treating.
Most people today view Halloween as a time for fun, putting on costumes, trick-or-treating, and having theme parties.
Halloween is not celebrated or acknowledged in Saudi Arabia. However if it were, I’d wonder if it would look something like this?
and for those of you surely wondering, this photo was taken on 23 September in the streets of Jeddah during the Kingdom’s National Day celebration. Many of the youth took to the streets with paint on their faces and wearing green and white costumes as a show of pride….as well as an opportunity to just have some fun.
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Of course we celebrate Halloween in Saudi Arabia. Many of the compounds have the kids dress up and there are parties and games, etc. Of course, now that many of the Americans are gone, you don’t see it celebrated as much these days….but in the past…it was done along with Valentine’s Day, Easter Egg Hunts, 4th of July, Christmas, etc. Saudi Arabia has everything here that is in every other country from the best to the very worst….it’s just all under cover. :
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very true, Rose CG!
Back in the 60′s and early 70′s when I was a kid, Halloween was HUGE. I remember counting down the minutes until school was out so that we could go home and get into our costumes and go trick or treating. My mother made our costumes from scratch and they were always elaborate…she had three kids so she started early. I also remember that we always had to actually say trick or treat…she used to tell me that the adults waited all day to see the costumes so we had to do our share and give them a big trick or treat!
Nowadays, although Halloween is still a big deal for kids it is almost an adult holiday. The adults get into it almost more than the kids…minus the door to door trick or treating of course! Huge parties, haunted houses etc.
Where we live in Ohio there is something called “beggars night” which is the day when kids go trick or treating. It isn’t always on the 31st and it is usually for two hours. We never had a time limit when I was a kid in New Jersey. when we moved here, I heard people talking about Beggars Night and I am so glad…my daughter would have missed trick or treating entirely as I had NEVER heard of that tradition of doing it on any other day than Oct. 31st. GREAT memories!
I also have very positive memories of Trick or Treating and like you Oby, my mom also made the costumes. I remember being in the Halloween parade and winning first prize for best costume the years I went as Mr. Peanut and Miss Bo Peep respectively. My mom put such love and care and imagination into our costumes. And I don’t know about where you went to school but as a young girl the school also had Halloween parties where we were customes, played games and always had wonderful cake walks. Those were also the times when going trick or treat one did not worry about who was handing out what because all neighbors were known and trusted.
Ah yes school parties!
One year I was a princess complete with a satin gown and fake ermine collar and cuffs with a big pointy hat with a flowing train..another year I was a fairy princess with tons of tulle and I can remember sitting at the kitchen table watching my mother hand glue hundreds of sequins on it. I was four that year.
Another year I was a little Dutch girl complete with a white dutch hat with the wings to the side(if you can picture it)..that was during the time when the TV program “the flying nun” was so popular and
EVERYONE thought I was the flying nun. That year was a bust because it was such a pain to have to explain at EVERY house “no! I am NOT the Flying Nun. I am a dutch girl.”LOL! then one time I was a ballerina with a tutu and everything! boy I thought I was hot stuff! It was cold that year and I remember my mother made me wear a sweater! I was incensed that I had to wear it. “no one will see my costume” I wailed. But mom (and common sense) prevailed. I wore the sweater and survived the ballerina fiasco.
Qurqaiyan, is a day about in the middle of Ramadan. In most GCC countries its celebrated and in the Eastern region as far as I know.. it might include some other regions in Saudi Arabia. This event resembles Halloween, children will dress up and move in groups knocking on doors to collect sweets while singing for the celebration. However they don’t dress up in scary costume.. they wear some traditional clothes like Daraa and such.
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My sisters and I werent allowed to go trick or treating when young…my father forbid us doing just about anything even remotely fun…but we did get to join the parties at school etc. My kids did enjoy one Holloween when they were quite young…had lots of fun but it was sure was a cooooold night!!!
I think Holloween is just a lot of fun anymore with almost no religious strings attached for most people.
My, I wrote a post this morning about how Qurqiyan has familiarities with halloween.. I must have forgot to hit submit and closed the window.
I the Netherlands we don’t do Halloween, but now you get to see more and more grown-up halloween parties. In the North we celebrate ”Saint Martins’s Day” Children make colourful lanters from cardboard and laquered paper, you put a candle inside and carry it around on saint martins day and ring on doors. You have to sing a song though before you get your treat.
It was so much fun! Making the lanterns, and going around with a couple of friends, preparing your repertoire and discussing which ones to sing! Of course the aim was to collect chocolates and candy, but iunfortunately some children have ”responsible mothers” who would give out apples or mandarins. And there was a special derisive song for miserly people who did not open the door.
Aafke…Hmmm, that sounds like what we did at Christmas when we went caroling. We had to take a small empty milk carton with a slit in it the top for money that we were to collect from the parents in the neighborhood. Imagine !
The first time my Saudi husband saw the carolers, he came running up the stairs and said, “There are people at our front door SINGING!!! Quick, give them money and tell them to go away!” ha ha I told him, “It’s just the neighbors. If you give them money, they WILL go away!” It was so fun watching him experience all of these American things that were so foreign to him. I’m sure he has had plenty of payback here in his country as well watching me try to cope.
In Ireland the holiday is still pretty popular with bonfires and all.
Many Christians in the USA do not celebrate the holiday either because of it’s pagan roots, other Christians, as the Catholic church, simply co-opted the day and claimed it as their own.
Abu Sinan, I think that you should clarify that it would be ‘fundamentalist’ christians that do not celebrate Halloween as other Christians even have Halloween parties at the churches.
Halloween, like Christmas, was co-opted, in a sense, because people did not act properly while celebrating these ‘pagan’ holidays and the church knew they couldn’t just stop it so they put religion in it so that they could control their people and calm down the celebrations without taking it away from them completely.
@Lynn,
Sure, I agree with you. But to a certain extent, I dont find “fundamentalists” in any religion to be a bad thing. Even thought it is a pejorative term now, used hand in hand with “extremists” I dont think they are the same thing.
Someone who is a “fundamentalist” is someone who sticks to the fundmentals of their faith. Celebrating halloween is not a fundamental part of Christianity, it is something barrowed from pagan practices.
Just because someone sticks to the “fundementals” (fundamentalist) of their faith, doesnt mean they are extremists.
Churches who celebrate halloween or host halloween events are straying from what is a Biblical part of their faith.
Maybe they should be called “extrofundamentalists” meaning people who do not stick to the basics of their faith?
Halloween in the States has changed, as Oby said. Its kind of sad actually… parents are worried about their kids’ safety and I guess with good reason. I too enjoyed the 80s Halloween free-for-alls, we went nuts! No parental supervision, some years more than one costume for a second round… one night of pure freedom.
In my neighbourhood now, we have tons and tons of kids, but in the past few years we’ve been lucky if 20 show up for candy. So the adults have taken over the court with firebowls, camp chairs, grills and beer. There is always some candy around for the random child of course. Some of us dress up, some don’t.
I couldn’t imagine NOT dressing up and celebrating
I always enjoyed on Halloween day how many adults would even drive to work dressed up in costume. In my experience Halloween has simply been a day to have fun, dress up in some kind of costume and have a good time for children and adults alike.
The first Halloween with my Saudi husband in the States he so enjoyed answering the door, looking at the children’s costumes and passing out candies. And yes, come to think of it, we had some carolers too at Christmas time and he was also confused as to why a group of people would choose to sing outside the door in the cold!
@abu sinan
There is nothing in Christianity that says people cannot have some innocent fun. No, Halloween isn’t in the Bible, but neither is baseball, football, movies, television etc. The idea that religions cannot evolve may seem correct to Muslims (and fundamentalist Christians) but that doesn’t make it wrong.
I agree with Jerry M in that I am Catholic and we pretty much followed the “rules” of our religion. My dad(he was the Catholic-my mother converted years later) was always quite sure to make sure we were observant in all ways and I can remember nothing that conflicted between Halloween and religion and if it did we would not have been able to partake. He definately was not fundametalist AKA as Abu Sinan says extremist. Just a solid Catholic practicing his faith and being observant. It wasn’t until I was grown and moved to the Southern part of America that I ever even heard that there was a conflict between religion and Halloween. According to some what we would call fundamentalist Christian groups it is prohibited in the Bible…I don’t know…it was the same Bible that we used and there was nothing in there that we found that said it wasn’t OK. In fact, I never even EQUATED religion and Halloween together until moving South. But to be clear that isn’t all of the South. A lot of the churches would put on parties and Halloween festivities for the kids of the church. Still, it didn’t beat going from door to door to shout “trick or treat!”
And I guess the lesson here is one can take any holy book (in this case the Bible) and interpret it in different ways to mean different things. Perhaps being too severe in religion is not a good thing.
I grew up on the cusp off treakin and treating was worrisome for parents. At arounfd the age of ten my parents would investigate the candy in bag to see if there was any containmentation or the big scare then, razpr blades in the candy. I think it is shame that we can no longer trust people anymore.
I come from a Catholic family and one of the reasons I converted to Islam and left Christianity was the widespread co-opting of the religious practices and holidays of pagans.
Of course modern Christians who celebrate Halloween, Christmas or Easter are not knowingly celebrating a pagan holiday, but that is the roots of all three of these holidays. They hold no Biblical or Christian origins, rather were taken from the pagans who themselves were coerced into converting or often murdered by early Christians.
Anyway, I dont want to derail this topic.
@Carol,
Interesting you note about your hubby wondering why people would brave the cold to sing carols.
When I moved to England we’d get young kids showing up at the door singing carols. I learned after the first year it was customary for the owners of houses visited by these groups to give a small amount of money to each one.
After that we’d keep a small bowl of 50p (.75 cents) coins near the front door for such events.
@abu sinan…
I know what you are saying about Pagan holidays. As I got older(early teens) I did learn where it came from and how it was absorbed into the religion. there is a great National Geographic documentary that talks about what it is and how it came about.
Over the years however, it has taken on a secular meaning and is just plain good fun and scary times. Kids from all backgrounds celebrate it so I am not sure that it is or should still be tied to religion. But as I said some people still do.
Why is it ok to condemn paganism off hand without any other justification? Paganism isn’t one thing and condemning the influence of paganism is either bigotry or ignorance (or perhaps both). The Native Americans were pagans if that word has any meaning. Hinduism can be seen as paganism.
Should we condemn the influence pagans like Gandhi had on modern Christians?
Abu Sinan,
I just stated a fact, I did not make a judgement or use the term ‘extremist’
I find it interesting that anyone who’s supposedly religious would judge ANY type of superstitious practice, since it all is in fact superstition. If you have doctrine, literature, etc. advising you on how to live your life on a daily basis…that’s one thing…but every single religion makes some reference to what happens after life (or should I say upon death?) as if anyone knows that. They talk about heaven this, heaven that, burn in hell blah, blah, blah. It’s all crap and it’s boring. Which is why I celebrate most of the holidays. I do it because it’s fun!! And, there is NOTHING wrong with a little fun. BTW: I love Halloween. And, dress up every year. Well, with the exception of this year, since I will be in route to the US on Halloween.
I agree with Jerry M.
Typically, the ones that do not approve of Halloween are the ones that think that it is about worshipping the devil when I think that that is the farthest thing from the minds of anyone I have ever seen celebrate Halloween and does not jibe with truth of it’s origin.
When I was a kid we used to go out and not come back until our pillowcase was too heavy to carry and then we’d go home, dump it out and go out for more! The streets were packed with kids and we never really worried too much about the candy being tampered with even though there were the odd reports now and then. But we always had the choice of taking it up to the police station to be x-rayed.
There still seems to be a lot of kids out trick or treating, depending on the neighborhood. Some will have community parties and I think that takes away all the fun of running through the fallen leaves to get to as many houses as you could. When I used to live down the street (semi main road crossing between us) from my parents I would only get about 2/3 the amount of kids as my mother who would get well over 100 kids at her door. I’ve moved and I still don’t think that I get that many kids at my house. I wish my kids were young again, I miss going through all their candy and ‘confiscating’ all their questionable chocolates! Last year I tried it with the neighbor kids but they caught on pretty quickly.
Getting back to Halloween itself. Whatever the roots, it isn’t a religious celebration. It might do Saudis good to have some fun sometimes that isn’t mentioned in 7th century religious texts.
I’ve put up lights and a statue of Lakshmi for Diwali this year. I’m all for celebrating any festival you can lay your hands on
especially if it has pretty lights and statues
@Aafke
I am more of a Ganesh fan than Lakshmi but I love the idea
Aafke, you can have the lights and pretty statues. Give me the CANDY!
im born and raised american and was catholic until i converted to islam. we never celebrated halloween in my family growing up ever…. just because something seems like its a harmless fun holiday doesnt mean it is. my parents never like what halloween is associated with or the idea of going to strangers houses begging….
being an adult now i never look back and regret it. we always went to church on halloween with tons of other kids and ate candy and pizza or whatever and watched movies and played games.
now we have EID which is fine for me
BCIS – aw, come on….go ahead and wear something special for Halloween…who cares if you’ll be on an airplane!
BCIS you can keep on your abaya and pretend you’re a Dementor!!!
Nobody in KSA will notice, and you’ll scare the hell out of everybody in America!
Jerry M I like ganesh too! I have a beautiful small bronze statue of Ganesh.
Lynn, you’re welcome!
Amirah, it’s as innocuous and innocent as you want it to be.
Things like these are like the cave Yoda sent Luke in: ”There is only the evil you bring into it yourself.”
Sorry for being super-nerdy.
BCIS – Please, please wear a Halloween costume on the airplane and post the pics on your blog. Pretty please
Aafke, Re: Yoda – Wise, he was.
Lynn, Aafke
I agree with you about fun. Sometimes it really is just innocent fun.
No costumes for me, but my wife has one, and she has one for our dog!
i’ve never dressed up for haloween, but F did for a couple of yrs and scared the kids that come home. so all had to stop him. however haloween was the favorite of my kids rated even higher than Diwali and eid ( the lure of money /gifts)
ah now they’re too old to go trick or treating and my baby girl has been begging me for a haloween party.. after navrathi and Eid and Diwali i’m all partied out.. no more till maybe thanksgiving.happy diwali to you aafke.
Radha,
The kids can still have fun. They can make a party out of making the house spooky and passing out candy with friends. Do you have a yard where they can have a bon fire or a pit fire? I’d let them have a party as long as they are the ones in charge ot it and cleaning up after. It’s not that often that Halloween falls on a weekend when you don’t have school or work in the morning. C’mon, mom, please? lol
Ahhhh, that’s cute that F would dress up Radha! My husband liked being the one to answer the door when we had trick o treaters. We even have a little costume for my grandson this year.
WHAT???!!! Can’t believe it, I arrived LATE to the Halloween post! Dammit!
Oh well.
I’d just like to say that I personally do not know ONE PERSON who has converted to Wicca after a lifetimes’ exposure to Trick or Treat. LOL.
I think sometimes people over analyze things WAY too much.
Aafke, you never cease to amaze me. Diwali? Really? Alright now, I want to see some pictures, I don’t believe you.
Well, I just put up a statue and some lights…
I go for any religious festival which sounds like fun.
Since this is my Grandson’s first Halloween, his parents had a grand time decorating the outside of the house this year. They have floating Casper Friendly ghosts, spider webs and big spider that bobs up and down from the roof! They live in a very children friendly neighborhood so we anticipate a lot of trick o’treaters at the door.
Now did anyone ever do any tricks? For those not familiar was that if someone did not give a trick o’treat a treat when they knocked on the door, the kids would usually play a trick. The most common tricks where I grew up was to write on windows with soap, usually make Halloween pictures on the windows like a pumpkin or to “tee pee” a house…this was to take rolls of toilet paper and wrap them around porch posts, trees, mailboxes. And some young guys (boys) who liked a particular girl would be known to “trick” her house at Halloween to make her wonder who liked her!
Not me, Carol. No shenanigans….ever. Perfect angel over here.
Aafke, what about that Hindu holiday where they throw those brightly colored powders at people? That one looks like fun. Sure most people wouldn’t quite appreciate it though.
We did those ‘tricks’ on Devil’s Night, the night before Halloween but it wasn’t really related to them not giving us candy since it was before Halloween unless were were just remembering from the year before ( I don’t remember now). No one minded us soaping their windows (took all the fun out of it! lol). We used to love to make dummies and hang them from trees or throw them in the streets. Jeez, what a bunch of PUNKS! Now we just make ourselves appear to be just dummies and we jump out at the trick or treaters scaring them off of the porch.
@Sabiwabi – That is also part of dwali and I also enjoyed celebrating it with my friends when I was posted to India. I felt honored that I had the opportunities to experience many of the traditional festivities and holidays while there.
@Lynn – oh yes…I forgot about the dummies. Those were popular were i was too!
that colored powdered festival in India is called Holi and it takes place in Spring…they use colored pwders, water balloons filled with colored water and water guns that spray really far filled with colored water. But those powders are wicked…I never could get the stains out of my clothes no matter how much I prespotted, scrubbed and washed.
oopss…sorry for my confusing the holidays. Oh yes, when I was invited to participate I was forewarned to wear a very old shalwar kameez that I did not mind getting stained! But of course that is part of the fun!
LMAO at American Bedu, Aafke, and Lynn…that would be funny. I’m still laughing at the thought of my wearing a costume on the plane. Heck…maybe people will think I’m wearing one regardless (yikes)…
@BCIS – now you know you have to give us full details about your flight, whatever you decide to wear and reactions!
ah holi, my favorite, havnt’ celebrated it in years. I had my first hr long chat with F on my first hoi in med school. .. i lived in curie house and we all came out to celebrate holi, the guys tamly came and put a little color on us and F walked up smiled and dumped the whole tray on my head and proceeded to invite me for chai . We always claimed it was our festival but it’s been close to 15 yrs since we celebrated it i think,
carol – you have more fun working than i’ve ever had in my entire life
Aafke – being the artist, i bet you can make a splash on holi.
@Radha, I’m glad that F understood what to do on holi (big smile)!
When I read this post, I thought of Holi and waited to see if it comes up in the responses. Sure enough there are references to Holi and Diwali! Aafke, I admire your spirit of celebrating festivals. Halloween is just the kind of fun festival I’d love to celebrate if I could get a chance! And of course Holi and Diwali are fun and so is Eid.
About the references to paganism etc, everyone has their own kind of religions and festivals, so what’s wrong if some people want to be pagans? One shouldn’t judge others’ beliefs – if we can have fun during a festival, nothing wrong with it.
@Daisy, the thought of being a pagan while enjoying sharing in festivals and holidays such as Halloween or Holi never entered my mind!
No Carol, it’s not you but some other references above that talk about not celebrating Halloween because it has pagan associations.
Did God ever say not to have fun?
Have all the fun you want as long as you don’t laugh if you are a woman, right ?
Wow. I guess i know who is American Bedu! He is a diplomat in US Consulate in Jeddah. Cables leaked out from this Consulate, through WikiLeaks, have now confirmed that a high ranking US Consulate official was attending an ‘underground’ halloween party in Jeddah in 2009. An American firm had also spent money to arrange that party where 250 spoiled but ultra rich saudi young men and women came. And the american diplomat sent the cable that country’s laws were violated in that party, as alcohol and all other things banned in the country were available there.
That’s why the world hates you! Because you secretly encourage a fringe of society in a foreign country to break the law. From now on, i guess the movement of every diplomat in Saudi should be monitored strictly and anyone trying to destabilize or encourage the citizens to violate country’s law, should be punished according to local law!