SHOULD WE CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN? (Essay)

SHOULD WE CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN?

The term Halloween is not strange to hear. Almost of children and adults are familiar with this term. Halloween is considered by most in the United State as a fun holiday, mostly for children. Children and adults alike enjoy this holiday, with funny costumes, candy, and parties, while some countries observe it as a remembrance of departed love ones and religious Saints. Nowadays, Indonesians who live in the big city and has modern lifestyle are likely celebrate Halloween. Like the Halloween party in abroad, they have fun in the party by using outlandish costumes themed of ghost and scary. Suddenly, I asked myself whether Indonesian who celebrates Halloween knew what did they do, or they merely imitate the west lifestyle and culture? I believed that most of them, actually, did not know the origin of it. They just show up the modern lifestyle and imitate the west culture influenced our life today (globalization). Moreover, their best reason is only one, just having fun. So, should we celebrate Halloween? I do disagree about this.

Halloween is an annual holiday observed on October 31, which commonly includes activities such as trick-or-treating, attending costume parties, carving jack-o'-lanterns, bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films. The history of Halloween goes back more than 2.000 years. The earliest celebrations of Halloween were among the Celtic people who lived in the areas, which are now Great Britain and Northern France. They had a festival commemorating the end of the year, precisely on October 31 - 1 November called as Samhain. Samhain was considered a magical holiday, and there are many stories about what the Celtics practiced and believed during this festival. Some say that the Celtics dressed up in outlandish costumes and roamed the neighborhoods making noise to scare the spirits away. The end of their year signaled the end of summer, the end of harvest season, and the beginning of long hard winter that often caused many deaths of animals and people. They believed the night before the New Year, the wall between the living and the dead was open. It is why the Halloween is identically with ghost.

In conclusion, it is clear that Halloween came from the Celtic’s beliefs. Here, I summed up that Halloween is only myth and we should not celebrate it. It was a Christian festival. Then, if we turn to the origin of Halloween’s term, it was the abbreviation of “All Hallows' Even” means the night before All Saints holy day. So, never try to celebrate it.