My Last Day In Mexico

My family and I grew up in Mexico with a mother was a very strict catholic. She would take us to church and to all sorts of events the church we went to sponsored. Also, Halloween is not a holiday in Mexico. Instead, we celebrate the Day of the Dead and the Day of All Saints. Every year, during these two days, my family and I would go to our local cemetery and place marigold flowers and food on the graves on our ancestors. It was a tradition we kept doing until we moved here to Glenwood Springs. Arriving to the United States was a bit of a culture shock. A lot of things were different. One of those things was the celebration of Halloween. On the last day of October, kids would dress up as many different things and go ask for candy. Of course,
the first couple of years I was here, I wanted to be part of the kids that went out to ask for candy. My mom, a strict catholic, was against the idea, but I managed to convince her. I was old enough to make my own decisions. So, for the first three years, I went out with my friends out to trick or treat. I enjoyed hanging out with my friends and getting candy. However, I could see the disapproving look my mom gave me every time I came back. Then, by the fourth year, I felt that I had outgrown the tradition. I no longer wanted to go out. Why? I do not know exactly. It was not exactly for religious purposes. Maybe it was because I did not like seeing the look of disappointment on my mom. So, I stopped celebrating Halloween. Then, a couple of years later, my brother and I traveled to Chicago. There, I went through a spiritual change. After that trip, I became more interested in our religious purpose. I started reading our Bible, going more often to Church, talking more with my mom about God, and I even joined the Church choir. It was through this spiritual change that I realized that celebrating Halloween was not part of our Catholic religion. And so, I joined my mom in the cause against Halloween. Years later, I still hold firm to the belief of not celebrating Halloween. My spouse and I are both pretty good Catholics. We try to go to Church as often as we can, we go to confession once a month, and we’re raising our child to follow our beliefs. So, whenever Halloween comes around, the mood is always different. I have come to accept that this holiday is pretty big America.
I don’t mind seeing the different costumes and accessories stores put up for Halloween. When Halloween night comes around, I turn off the light in front of my door and close the blinds around the house. I don’t like telling kids I don’t have candy so I make my house look as if it is empty. There have been a few years where I had bought candy to give out to the kids, but that was just because of my brother, who is very pro Halloween. Now, however, I just try to avoid the holiday as much as I can. Currently, my mother and I are fighting a battle against my brother, who wants our little sister to celebrate Halloween. Currently, our little sister is stuck in the middle. She wants to go out with her friends to get a lot of candy, but she knows that celebrating Halloween is not good for a Catholic. My mom has been raising her to be a good Catholic, so she understands the wrongs of Halloween. It is a battle we have every year, one that my brother loses every year. In the future, I hope that we no longer have to fights this battle over Halloween and that we can all just come to terms with the fact that some people celebrate Halloween and some
don’t.
The origin of Halloween can be found inside the culture of the ancient Celtic people.
They had a pagan festival that they celebrated over 2000 years ago. . The festival the Cletics where celebrating at this time was called Samhain. This festival was usually held at the end of the harvest season. They believed that during this time, October 31, the dead could come back to the world of the living and that the living could communicate with the dead. During this time, some of the Celtics would were ghoulish costumes so that the dead would think they were one of their own and leave them alone. Besides the reasons given above, Halloween masks and costumes were used to hide one’s attendance at pagan festivals or, as in traditional shamanism (mediated by a witch doctor or pagan priest) and other forms of animism, to change the personality of the wearer to allow for communication with the spirit world. Here, costumes could be worn to ward off evil spirits. On the other hand, the costume wearer might use a mask to try to attract and absorb the power of the animal represented by the mask and costume worn. According to this scenario, Halloween costumes may have originated with the Celtic Druid ceremonial participants, who wore animal heads and skins to acquire the strength of a particular animal. This is where the idea of costumes originates. As for the tradition of trick or treating, this was created when Catholic priests in Europe adopted the local pagan practices. They would go door
to door dressed in costumes asking for food. Pumpkins were used to ward off evil spirits. They were also used to collect the food they were asking for. And this is how the use of pumpkins was created for Halloween. Halloween symbols, customs, and practices undoubtedly have had a variety of influences upon Western culture throughout history. However, in early American history, Halloween was not celebrated due to America’s strong Christian heritage. It was not widely observed until the twentieth century. Initially, it was practiced only in small Irish Catholic settlements, until thousands of Irish migrated to America during the great potato famine and brought their customs with them. To some degree, our modern Halloween is an Irish holiday with early origins in the Celtic winter festival. Interestingly, in American culture, the rise in popularity of Halloween also coincides roughly with the national rise in spiritism that began in 1848.
Today, Halloween is a very popular holiday in the United States. Entertainment venues and media outlets have helped make Halloween the second most popular holiday in America, bringing in 6.9 billion dollars in revenue each year. Today, one of the challenges that Halloween faces in America is safety. The millions of kids that go trick or treating each year at night face danger from a many different things. Because of this, parents and local communities often organize groups into which kids can go trick or treating in. Furthermore, Halloween has evolved from its spiritual roots into an American consumption ritual. Each year, millions of Americans travel out to the stores and spend billions of dollars in Halloween merchandise. What was once a spiritual holiday has turned into a spending holiday that millions of American celebrate each year.
This custom of celebrating an "anti-holiday" on the evening before the holiday proper has roots deeper than you might think. Few in Western culture have heard of Krampus, for instance. Krampus is the opposite of Santa Claus, and in parts of Europe, Christmas Eve is not only about hanging stockings and waiting for presents, but fending off a startling devil figure named Krampus, who goes around heckling people, scaring and switching children, and generally running amok. Krampus is yet another Pagan leftover, as one might expect. This is too much excitement for Western culture, and so Santa's schedule got moved to the graveyard shift on the night before Christmas to compensate.
In this technology driven world, it’s important to remember that along with society, even holidays are subject to evolution. No matter what people choose to do, no matter what cultural, spiritual or material way, as long as people celebrate in a safe and happy way, the spirit of Halloween in America will endure for ages.