The History of Hallowe'en

What Do You Call The Night Before Hallowe'en?

If you said "October 30," you're not alone. But in some places, the night before Hallowe'en has other names.

• In Detroit and other places in Michigan, it's Devil's Night.
• In New Jersey's it's called Mischief Night...or Goosey Night, or even Cabbage Night.
• In Cincinnati it's also Mischief Night.
  
• In Washington state, some call it Devil's Eye.
• In some places, it's called Gate Night, a name that goes back decades.

The custom of trick or treating began in the 1930s precisely to stop what happens on October 30: once harmless pranks that turned destructive. In the 19th century, it was common for teens and even adults to hold costume parties on Hallowe'en. They'd play games like bobbing for apples (as is done in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown) and fortune-telling games, although most of the latter was carried out by young women hoping to find out the names of their future husband. (There were many ways of doing so, including peeling an apple, dropping hot lead into water, walking backward downstairs with a mirror in your hand, eating onions covered in salt, and more.) Later on, as depicted in the film Meet Me in St. Louis, children wandered around in costume pulling harmless pranks: dressing in old clothes, tossing flour in people's faces, tipping over outhouses (occupied as well as unoccupied), tying people's front and back gates up (hence Gate Night), soaping windows and tossing eggs at front doors. Gradually, the pranks became so destructive—fires were set, property was damaged, people were hurt—that it was outlawed altogether, and trick or treating substituted (with the relatively harmless pranks the last to vanish, the "trick" in trick or treat).

It wasn't long before the pranksters set up the night before Hallowe'en to play their tricks. Again, they started small and harmless, then became destructive, especially in cities where population was dwindling like Detroit, where so many fires were set in abandoned buildings one October 30 that the police and fire department couldn't keep up. Citizen patrols formed groups to stop the carnage, calling their force "Angels Night."

 

66 Days Until Christmas: That's What Christmas is All About...

 

What is Christmas? Well, to some people it's a deeply religious holiday chronicling the birth of the Christ Child and the events surrounding it. Celebrants attend religious services, erect nativity scenes, do good works in the name of Jesus, and some also indulge in the secular events of the season. To most people it's a happy holiday revolving around light displays, a pine tree (real or artificial) hung with lights and shining decorations, gift giving, eating tasty food (some of which is only eaten at Christmas), gathering with family and/or friends, and, sometimes, indulging in activities eschewed during the rest of the year.

 

To too many people it's a shop-till-you-drop, massive financial outlay, exhausting ordeal of buying presents, erecting tasteful decorations, corralling overexcited children and dour older relatives, cooking until your ankles swell and you hate the smell of cinnamon, and the constant thrum of the advertisers to "Buy! Buy! Buy!" so that your family may be happy and you will be fulfilled.

 

If that sounds all too familiar, the following three books may prove useful:

Celebrate the Wonder: A Family Christmas Treasury by Kristen M. Tucker and Rebecca Lowe Warren

Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli

The Christmas Survival Book by Alice Slaikeu Lawhead

All discuss the crazy hopes we have piled on Christmas, once just a reverent celebration of the birth of a special child intertwined with older, secular customs celebrating the turn of the year, when the days have begun lengthening again, featuring feasting and drinking, games, conviviality, gatherings, and singing: elaborate meals that will dazzle all who eat them, extravagant gifts that will prove our worth or fulfill our dreams, celebrations that will magically heal our marriages, revive our down-at-the-heels home, banish our teenagers' disinterest, cure our ex-spouse's selfish ways...oh, and make it snow. In Phoenix, Arizona. Just this once.

These are a breath of fresh air about how to make Christmas meet your expectations rather than you have to march to its: that you can simplify preparations, work out quiet spots, lose traditions that you hate, plan to deal with the unexpected without being torn emotionally about "how Christmas is supposed to be celebrated." The Lawhead book focuses the most on the Christian aspect of the celebration, and Celebrate the Wonder has a lot more about Christmas customs not native to the United States, but all three have a lot to say about quieter holidays, alternate celebrations, and peace on earth.

The bad news is that these are out of print. The good news is that they can all be found to borrow, albeit under their sad new "borrow for one hour" rule (there's no rule that says you can't read for one hour and then immediately "re-borrow" the volume) at the Internet Archive. I recommend all.

"When the Frost is on the Punkin'"

James Whitcomb Riley

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys*, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here-
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock-
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries-kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below-the clover over-head!-
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse** and saussage, too! ...
I don’t know how to tell it-but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me-
I’d want to ’commodate ’em-all the whole-indurin’ flock-
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock! 

 

* Guinea hens, a type of small tame fowl.

** A type of pickling spice, thus the meat preserved with it, usually pork.

78 Days Until Christmas: The Feast of St. Francis

St. Francis of Assisi, born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, was the son of a prosperous silk merchant and his French wife. He lived the high life until nearly dying from sickness, although he was always partial to giving gifts to the poor. His illness and a vision converted him to a life of selfless charity, and he was the founder of an order of monks, now known as the Franciscans.

Francis was a known animal lover and preached the Gospel, it is said, even to the birds. All animals were his brothers and sisters, as all men and women were. He is usually represented with at least one bird on his shoulder and perhaps another one in his hand, or at his feet, sometimes other small animals like squirrels and foxes near him, and statues of St. Francis placed in gardens often have him with one hand extended holding a shallow dish for a bird feeder. Today churches often have a Blessings of the Animals day on or near October 8 where people bring their pets to an outdoor service. In 1979, Pope John Paul II proclaimed Francis as the patron saint of ecologists.

St. Francis is connected with Christmas as the person who created the display that today we call a "nativity scene," a "manger scene," a "presepio," "crib," or "crèche." He realized that people still could not grasp the fact that the Son of God had come to earth as a "real person," not some idealized God-figure. He was born as an ordinary baby, raised as an ordinary human child who was to respect his parents, do chores, help his father in the carpenter shop, and grow up to be a carpenter himself, taking care of his widowed mother. So he created the first "living nativity" scene in a church, having villagers take the roles of the figures of the story: the Holy Family, the shepherds, the innkeeper, townsfolk, and the Magi, and he brought live animals to the display, ones that might have been found in any humble stable: the overworked little ass, the ox or cow, the lowly but useful sheep, goats, pigeons, perhaps a horse or mule. While elders complained that this was being a little too realistic, animals doing what animals are wont to do, St. Frances wanted to recreated the conditions of the story, to show the child Jesus of being from lowly origins, not being some patron of the wealthy.

Once the displays became popular, they were recreated with artificial figures. Today one can find expensive porcelain figures down to carved wooden statues all the way down to plastic reproductions and even children's hand-made clay figures. In the middle of the 20th century the "five and dime" stores would have a section of bins where you could buy chalkware and later resin or plastic "manger figures" individually, so even a poor family might add one or two to their scene every year. You might start with the Holy Family and an angel, add some shepherds and a sheep next year, the Magi the year after, an ox and or ass another year, camels and more sheep, perhaps a goat or a dog or a boy carrying eggs as a gift to the Christ child or, especially with Italian figurines, the ever-present zampognari, or bagpipe player. Perhaps even a little drummer boy. In France and other European countries figures are even made for other townspeople: the baker, the butcher, the candle maker, etc. The French call these little figures santons and they can be found in every Christmas market and shop during Advent.

There are almost as many ways to display your nativity scene as there are figures. Some traditionally put their manger scene under the Christmas tree. Some have a special console table or china cabinet top or shelf or area that is cleared out before the holiday and set up with nativity figures instead. Some families leave the crib empty until Christmas Eve, when the Baby Jesus is finally laid inside, and others don't put the Magi out until January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, when the travelers finally found the child. In some families the Magi are set up in another corner of the living area and inch their way slowly toward the stable.

 

81 Days Until Christmas

What's in your Christmas reading stack?

Here's mine:

Plus I have the new Ideals Christmas ordered.