Ep. 33 Halloween: How Americans Spend $6 Billion a Year on a Holiday They Don’t Understand
- Author
- Shea LaFountaine
- Published
- Sun 29 Oct 2023
- Episode Link
- None
Halloween is weird y’all. I mean, I love it, don’t get me wrong, but it is weird. The costumes, carving faces into pumpkins and putting candles in them, trick or treating - walking around to stranger’s houses at night, costumed stranger’s houses asking for candy, putting the candy into a bucket shaped like a pumpkin with a face. It’s bizarre, really. What a bizarre holiday. And it’s spooky too, right? It’s scary. I feel like it’s scarier than ever - monsters and demons and evil clowns, murderers with chainsaws. My neighbor posted something on Facebook recently that said quote “I don’t celebrate Halloween for the same reason Satanists don’t celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Light has no fellowship with darkness.” end quote. And I get it because they’re literally selling animatronic demons as Halloween yard decorations but I read this and I was like “ohhh, nooo.” Everyone totally misunderstands Halloween. It might seem evil if you don’t understand its origins, but did you know Halloween is really a blend of several historical holy days, spiritual, religious, dare I say… hallowed? Let’s fix that.
Sources:
- History.com "Halloween 2023"
- Library of Congress Blogs "The Origins of Halloween Traditions"
- PBS "Early Christians"
- Smithsonian Magazine "A Brief History of the Haunted House"
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