Your Halloween/Samhain traditions

[Gael Ridire]

In two weeks will be Samhain/Halloween what do you do for traditions?

When my children were young I’d strap on my kilt and accompany them around the neighborhood “trick or treating.” Had no need to ring the door bell, I’d just play a tune on the pipes. I’d get as much treats as my children did, if fact I could use a bigger sporran! Also at dusk I’d go outside and pipe in the New Year on 31 October.

Now the children have grownup and married (no grandchildren yet), but I still want this day to be special. TO ME the real event of this time is “Fiele Na Marbh/Feast of the Dead,” a time to celebrate the thinness of the veil between this world and the next. A time when ancestral spirits may cross and commune with the living, so a lighted candle is placed in the window for them to find their way home. At the dinner table an extra place setting is placed for those visiting, and a special cup/glass is placed at their setting. The following prayer is then offered:

This is the night when the gateway between
our world and the spirit world is thinnest.
Tonight is a night to commune with those who came before.
Tonight I honor my ancestors.
Spirits of my fathers and mothers, I invite you,
and welcome you to join us for this night.
You watch over us always,
protecting and guiding us,
and tonight we give thanks.
Your blood runs in our veins,
your spirit is in our hearts,
your memories are in our souls.

[The surname genealogy is then recited: I am Garry mac Ralph mac Earl mac William mac William mac John O’Bryan, who is a direct descendant of the High-King Brian Boru of the Emerald Isle.]

We remember all of you.
You have passed away, but never forgotten,
and you live on within our DNA,
and within those who are yet to come.
Beannacht choiche [blessings forever]

Although society now has Halloween about vampires, ghost, gouls, witches, etc., and some would have this holiday or celebration totally abandoned, at least a portion of the true meaning of this day is observed before the revelry and “trick or treating” of the modern evening celebration.

[Laird_M]

As a kid, we didn't celebrate it aside from the odd neighbourhood party.

These days we decorate the house, dress up, play suitable sound effects - creaking door, baying hounds etc, and scare the bejeezus out of the local kids.

The kids love comign as we fully engage and give out loads of candy, but its fun watching the timourous steps up to the front door.

Last yeat we even heard a mum say "and if you don't do your home work, you can go that THAT house..."

[macwilkin]

After taking the wee bairns "a souling" in the neighbourhood, I have a tradition of watching The Legend of Sleepy Hollow until the witching hour, and then going to bed so I will not be too tired at the All Saints Day Mass the next day.

The 1999 version of Washington Irving's classic story, a Halmark Channel/Canadian production, is, INMHO, the best adaptation of the story. Irving's father was a Scot, and some scholars have speculated that "Tam O'Shanter" may have influenced Irving's tale of Ichabod Crane and his midnight ride along the Tappan Zee.

T.

[macwilkin]

For those looking for some traditional (But not necessarily today's) Scottish Halloween customs, Ruth Kelley's The Book of Halloween (circa 1919) is available online. Here is the Scottish chapter:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/boh/boh10.htm

T.

[OC Richard]

That's cool... I never thought about playing pipes on Halloween.

Did you know that the theme tune from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion fits on the pipes?

As a kid in the 1960s Halloween was the best night of the year, because it was the only night all the kids got to run around the neighborhood at night by ourselves- back then parents didn't come along like they do now. (At least where I lived there were no adults to be seen on the streets that night.)

In my late teens I took to recreating some of the special effects from The Haunted Mansion at our house, like a floating head in a dark room, a ghost at the top of a staircase etc (created though projection).

Nowadays I host a Halloween costume party for my workplace each year.

Here I am as a Hitchiking Ghost from The Haunten Mansion



Here's that guy's full suit of armour, which he made himself. It's King Arthur's armour from Excalibur



Later I played the pipes

[macwilkin]

Our St. Andrew's Society used to hold a Halloween party, complete with bonfire, at the century farm of our President. One of our pipers would always turn up and play when one of resident Burnsians would recite "Tam O'Shanter":

There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. -


T.

[EHCAlum]

I'm the cool house that always hands out the full sized candy bars to kids, but they have to actually be in costume and ask nicely. I'll pass a bag of rummie gummies out to the parents as well.

Usually I will go to a party the closest Friday or Saturday if Halloween is on a weekday like today, this years I will be spending my first halloween with my fiancee and her two year old son.

I actually have rules when it comes to costumes:
1) Costume cannot repeat within 3-5 years unless its really popular like my Angus Young costume was
2) Costume must be immediately recognizeable by majority of people (AC/DC, Indianna Jones, etc)
3) NO COSTUMES IN BAGS! Costume must be original and accurate. I built a working guitar for the Angus Young get up.

This year I will be the 11th Doctor. I like bowties, bowties are cool.

[Bugbear]

Very cool link, cajunscot; I will have to look over that.

As it goes, I really don't have any Halloween traditions.
When I was a kid, some of the people where I lived celebrated the Mexican Day of the Dead, and it was kept separate from Halloween, as I remember. The OP's description slightly reminds me of that celebration; though I only saw it from afar.

When I was growing up, my family did hand out candy and we went trick or treating, but this was prefaced by strong warnings about Halloween etc, etc. Summoning the spirits of the dead was strictly forbidden, especially on Halloween.

Some of my friends , now-a-days, have Samhain customs or traditions, and candles are used; though a bondfire is sometimes part of the celebration if the weather has cooled down and there aren't fire restrictions.

[Bugbear]

I guess that's Bon Scott.

I think someone around here has a picture of Angus in a kilt, too.

It's an Angus thangus...

[Captain_Cogle]

Not sure what the wife and I will do yet this year. But it will be our 3rd Wedding Anniversary. Yes, we were married on Halloween. Probably dress up in one of my historical kits and go out bar hopping.