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The Origins of Halloween
For all you Pagans out there.
Another Halloween is in the bag and now we are off and running towards another pagan day of celebration — Christmas.
In the meantime, the kids of today, (and many parents and grown-ups) regard Halloween as that one day of the year when you get to splurge on free candy and chocolates, not knowing the origins of this rather weird day of celebration.
To school kids, it’s a day to dress up in a scary costume or as a favourite anime character or star or a favourite hero for a fun day at school. Many adults like the dressing up game as well and to some, Halloween is bigger than Christmas.
Is Halloween bigger than Christmas? Halloween is actually second to Christmas in holiday decoration sales. However, it beats out Father’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and even Easter in terms of retail sales.
So, what are the origins of Halloween?.
It depends who you ask. Long before Christianity surfaced, Halloween was a pagan day of celebration. The Roman Catholic church decided to make it a Christian day of celebration with a bit of finagling and the conversion of this non-theist day of celebration into a theist Christian one. Renamed All Hallowed Day it marked the beginning of Allhallotide, a three-day Christian…