Halloween? In Australia?

We’ve all seen it creeping in over the last few years. Halloween decorations in stores right after Easter. Costumes for sale - and some of them are getting a little better than the pseudo-Disney-Princess or Stormtrooper outfits. But I hear it so often…
“We’re in Australia, that’s an American thing!”
“Why are we celebrating this here?”

And yes, while it is a massive holiday in America, and there is for some reason a commercial push to make it big in Australia, there’s more to Halloween than decorations, lollies and costumes.

It all started by the Celts over 2000 years ago, with their celebration of Samhain (meaning summer’s end) - the Celtic New Years festival. The Celts believed that during this time, the veils between the worlds of the living and the dead was at its thinnest, allowing the dead to return and for those who had died but not yet moved on, to go to the other side. People would lay out the favourite foods of those that had passed, in case they or other spirits visited. Over time, this practice became Christianised, and “souling” became more popular in the 16th century, which is where the poor would go house to house asking for soul-cake in return for prayers. This tradition started to evolve into what it is today once the Irish moved to America to escape the Potato Famine in the 1840s. All Hallows’ Eve, All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day became widely practiced, alongside “souling”, with people getting sweet treats instead of just soul-cake.

In the 1920’s, masked children ran amuck, vandalising and creating mischief, and so the traditional war born where children would go around to people’s houses and receive a treat and in return they would leave that persons property alone. This tradition has continued both in Canada and American alike and is commercially the second largest holiday in America today.

It is doubtful that the holiday will ever become as big here as it is in America, but it took thousands of years to grow to what is it today, so never say never :-).