Hallow Won't

 

Move Hallowe'en?? Horrors!

There’s an underground rumbling that suggests the scariest night of the year be moved from the last day of October to the last Saturday of October.

WTF?

Granted, the rumbling comes from disgruntled parents and teachers who are inconvenienced by managing children jacked on sugar the day after Hallowe’en, but it also indicates a lack of understanding about the day itself and why it exists in the first place.

“Hallowe’en” is the contracted form of “All Hallow’s Eve”, “All Hallows” being November 1, otherwise known as “All Saints Day” on the religious calendar.

Did I say “religious”? Yes, and I meant to say it. And I’m not apologizing, either. I may not be conventionally religious, but I do enjoy the holidays and observances associated with (and some say stolen from) annual celebrations of spring, fall, and winter.

I wonder why no one bothered to Christianize the summer solstice.

I digress.

Hallowe’en happens on October 31 for a reason. It’s not about the candy. Okay, maybe now it is, but originally, it was the last chance day in the year for evil spirits to work their nefarious magic on innocent souls before the saints came marching in on November 1. The dead rose to walk again, witches cast wicked spells and Satan roamed free. Folks dressed up to fool said evil spirits – and their earthbound minions – on the premise that they wouldn’t be recognized and the spirits would bypass them. That’s where the tradition of Hallowe’en costumes come from. In truth, I’m unsure where the trick-or-treat thing started, though it’s likely rooted in the same occasion, and candy was not the anticipated outcome. Successfully dodging the demons was.

The Easter argument doesn’t support moving October 31, either. Easter happens in coincidence with Passover, an event dependent on the lunar cycle, which is not attached to a static date. Candy wasn’t the anticipated outcome at Easter or Passover, either, by the way. I’m not at all sure where chocolate fits into history though, being a fool for Cadbury Creme eggs, I do appreciate its presence in the modern era.

If it hasn’t become obvious by now, I’m all for keeping Hallowe’en where it is. If anything needs to change, perhaps getting rid of trick-or-treat is the answer. After all, I’m not the only one who’s been buzzed on Hallowe’en candy since August!

Stuff It

I love single servings!

When I was a kid, the only time Mum cooked a turkey was at Christmas. That means we had stuffing once a year, and I’m here to tell you, though Mum cooked a beauty every time that I remember, the bird was not the star of the family holiday feast. Mum didn’t go in for the homemade sausage/cranberry/chestnut/kitchen sink dressing; for expediency’s sake she knocked out a box of Stove Top and we were fine with it.

“Stove Top or potatoes?” The answer was a no brainer in our house:

Both!

However, if forced at gunpoint to choose one over the other, my younger younger brother once said he’d be content with a bowl of stuffing and gravy—and I completely, heartily, vehemently agree. And while one might argue that a boxed stuffing mix is cheating, you can’t really call it substandard because the bread should be a little stale anyway and most of the herbs in a homemade version are as dry as they are in the commercial product. Fresh herbs just don’t pack the same punch; not in stuffing, anyway.

Mind you, my older sister made a batch from scratch at Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, and I would have devoured the whole pan except there were seven other people at the table and it would have been rude not to share.

So this weekend, Ter was debating about veggies to go with our Easter dinner. “You’re doing sprouts, right?” I asked, because we love Brussels sprouts and apparently can’t have them too often.

“Oh yeah,” she concurred, “but instead of carrot/turnip mash, I’ve got a couple of squash that I haven’t used, so maybe the acorn ...?”

That’s a lot of cooking and I try to spare her where I can. “I’ll forfeit the mashed potatoes for squash,” I said.

She knows I’ve never met a spud I haven’t liked, so she was sufficiently dubious. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. Because it’s really all about the stuffing.”

Stuffing with gravy, sprouts, squash, and a side of turkey.

Happy Easter.

Holidaze

For years now, people have complained about Christmas showing up in October. That’s never bothered me, probably because I love Christmas, but this year I’ve noticed something I’m sure was not the ordinary until now.

There used to be space between holidays. Sometime after school started, harvest froufrou would kick off Thanksgiving (breathe), then Hallowe’en (not an “official” holiday but you’ll see my point) would be proclaimed (breathe), then Remembrance Day (breathe), then Christmas would get into gear, followed (followed, mind you) too soon by Boxing Day and New Year’s, after which we’d get a few weeks off before being confronted with Valentine’s Day in early February. Retailers gave consumers a break between reasons to consume, but that no longer happens.

Hallowe’en candy is in stores just after school starts. Thanksgiving is celebrated with little to no preamble, probably since it’s counter-intuitive to promote acquiring more stuff at a time when we’re meant to be grateful for what we have. Poppies are on lapels before Hallowe’en – no discredit there, as November 11 is hardly a goldmine for the veterans – but this year I saw my first Christmas commercial mere hours before the first trick-or-treaters emerged on October 31. Geez. That blew my mind. I mean, I try to restrain my Yuletide spirit until November 11, and I believe the rest of the world should do the same thing.

What’s that, Ru? The rest of the world should wait until the veterans have been remembered before we launch into the annual consumer frenzy like good little lab rats? And where were you on the first weekend in November, hmmmmmm?

Okay, okay. I confess—I was at Canadian Tire, topping up on twinkle lights and stopping at Starbucks for a steamed eggnog. Sue me. I have lately been so overwhelmed by the bad news and negativity in the world that I was desperate for something to make me happy. Well, Christmas makes me happy. The lights, the food, the music, the convivial cheer that seems more prevalent among strangers—in the face of death and destruction and people behaving badly, I’m all for indulging in a little premature holiday spirit.

I digress. Sort of. As Dr Seuss pointed out, and contrary to what the big eastern syndicate would have us believe, Christmas doesn’t come from a store. And it doesn’t matter anyway, when I know what’s coming on December 24: the first Boxing Day sale ads, mixed in with New Year’s sale ads, bleeding into Valentine’s Day diamond commercials in January, blurred by Easter treat blurbs in February, Mother’s Day flower adverts in April and so on and so on ...

Believe me, I’m into the holidays this year, and because I’m into them, I want to slow down and enjoy them—even the commercials (the celebratory food and drink ones, not the appalling Black Friday ones)—before the marketing moguls snatch the Yuletide season from my grasp.

Merry Christmas in advance!