This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer from North Calais.
Halloween has become the launching pad for the holidays. Once, not very long ago, we waited until Thanksgiving to kick things off, and I suppose boomers like me missed the memo extending all things commercial — defined by capitalism as all things — to encompass much of the autumn, sometimes even late summer.
In Montana a couple of years ago, at a Labor Day sale where my son was buying a grill, it was impossible to ignore the Christmas trees, lights and lawn ornaments already on display, while the temperature outside hovered in the mid-90s.
We monetize everything from private prisons to suffocating college debt. War has always been one of our favorite moneymakers, with the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the just-ended 20-year battle in Afghanistan fleecing taxpayers while earning trillions for defense contractors.
In those fallow periods between wars, we have holidays, startling not only for their fiscal clout but how far afield they’ve drifted since their ancient inception as something else entirely — bound originally more to the earth and spirituality than a cash register.
We’ve been warned about supply chain issues with the same intensity as might accompany alerts of an imminent terrorist attack. The message, breathlessly delivered by every media platform, transcending even politics: Shop now or your children may be shut out of the holiday joy that is their birthright. Websites have numerous ads disguised as news stories about medical breakthroughs, expert mortgage tips and kitchen products you simply cannot do without.
We’ve become such easy marks, so eager to comply, that even though Black Friday comes with a body count, millions still shop with abandon.
Somewhere along the line we’ve been convinced that every day is “special” and we spend accordingly. Whether Easter, Fourth of July or Valentine’s Day, it’s as though being consumers is our duty, purchasing on command. Although I imagine most of my age cohort remember shopping — before it usurped baseball as a national pastime — as a necessity, rather than an obligation. But make no mistake, our sheer numbers (over 76 million) had postwar corporate institutions salivating at our unprecedented potential. We were a commercial gold mine. All those coonskin caps were not designed to simply keep our heads warm.
Like many other of our holidays, Halloween has evolved from a seasonal, pagan celebration, if you can call the end of harvest and the increasing likelihood of death a celebration. But 2,000 years ago, in what is now the United Kingdom, ancient Celts believed that somewhere in late October the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred, with the ghosts of the dead returning to earth. Called Samhain (pronounced sow-in), it was commemorated by Druids building huge bonfires while dressed in animal heads and skins, a costume party that in some form, endures until this day.
After the Roman Empire and eventually Christianity intervened, Halloween was well on its way toward the kid-oriented, sugar-munching holiday that finds us spending an estimated $10 billion this year, including over $490 million on costumes for our pets.
A 19th-century trend toward molding the holiday into a more community-centered event saw Americans ditching witchcraft, ghosts and pranks for neighborhood parties with games, food and festive costumes.
And in yet another nod toward boomers’ potential as consumers, today’s traditions largely kicked it up a notch the 1950s, reviving a centuries-old version of trick-or-treating.
All Saints Day and All Souls Day follow on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, respectively, religious variations of honoring the dead with more bonfires and dressing up as saints, angels, devils and martyrs. Particularly in Mexico, Central and South America, “dia de los Muertos” — Day of the Dead — is a national holiday allowing people to pay respects to those who have passed away, perpetuating a Latin American tendency to merge Catholic traditions and indigenous customs.
We experienced the festivities firsthand a couple of years ago in Quito, Ecuador, where the celebration lasted for the better part of a four-day weekend with sweet baked goods and fruity drinks; the opening of churches and crypts for families to visit, keep vigil and leave tokens or gifts such as flowers or food; as well as what felt like an ongoing street fair representing far more than a simple party.
This commemoration of ancestors serves as an ideal opportunity to introduce the concept of death to children, reducing fear while revealing that it’s a natural phenomenon while simultaneously extolling the gift of life.
Here at home, Halloween, once kid-oriented and far simpler, has become a vital cog in our holiday-industrial complex that threatens to overwhelm the calendar with one, year-long, celebration. Forbes Magazine cites millennials, whose childhoods are fondly remembered and still discernible in the rearview, for having “hijacked” Halloween from the kids, blaming their “prolonged adolescence” for transforming the holiday into an economic engine second only to Christmas.
Since two out of three adults believe Halloween is for them, too, and it would be unseemly to canvass the neighborhood in search of candy, they find alternatives to satisfy that sugar jones including at work, where dress codes are relaxed; costumes abound; and bowls of candy appear on every desk. Speculation suggests adults enjoy the holiday because it’s easy. Close to home with no traveling or relatives to confront, but there may be another reason entirely. The same percentage of adults who believe that Halloween is for them also believe in ghosts, with almost 30 percent claiming to have seen one.
Although it’s unclear how many Vermonters believe in ghosts, ghouls, or goblins, we do tend to shun religion on a grand scale. Our stand-ins, according to Pew Research, are unaffiliated or “none”; atheist; agnostic; or “nothing in particular,” so we’re open to most anything. It makes some sense that we have so many haunted houses, covered bridges and churches, freaky legends — check out the “Devil’s Washbowl” and even the “Queen City Ghost Walk.”
If none of that appeals, you can always start your holiday shopping.
