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I’d be the last person to criticize this woman. She was totally sincere and believed that she was doing right by her family. And yet . . . in order to be perfectly consistent, she would have had to also eliminate Christmas and Easter celebrations from her household as well. Both of those Christian holidays have traditions with pagan roots.
I first had the opportunity to sing Franz Schubert’s lovely “Litanei auf das Fest Aller Seelen” (Litany for the Feast of All Souls) in a concert with a Hallowe’en theme. Weird, huh? Well, actually not. I’m going to take a little time here to explain this Roman Catholic holiday, an occasion that’s not at all well known today. There are actually three holidays in a row right at the beginning of winter: Halloween, or “All Hallows’ Eve,” “All Hallows’ (or “All Saints'”) Day,” Nov. 1, and then “All Souls’ Day,” Nov. 2. These three days together form “Hallowmas Season.” I’d encourage you to follow the link above to my other article if you want more information. Basically, though, what it boils down to is that the Roman Catholic church, and to some extent other denominations, took advantage of existing traditions in pagan cultures and put a Christianized spin on them. As winter approached it was natural to think of the death of loved ones as the year itself was dying. The saints (those who, according to RC doctrine, were especially holy) got their day first on Nov. 1, and then everyone else (“all souls”) came in on Nov. 2.
Back in October 2015 my choir gave a concert titled “BOO!” We had so much fun with doing a Halloween-themed program. Here are three short essays about songs we sang that include some kind of monster theme.