Hallolympics 

A Trick Or Treating alternative

Halloween Game Tournaments – modeled after the Olympics, are a fun and safer way to celebrate Halloween. In its heyday, Halloween was a fun time when kids dressed in colorful costumes and roamed about friendly neighborhoods, toting gargantuan sacks of goblin goodies, and issuing the familiar ultimatum ... Trick or Treat!  Doors opened and smiling people greeted bands of ghosts, ghouls, hobgoblins, and witches with delicious treats. Frequently accompanying the bestowing of treats were cups of hot apple cider with cinnamon sticks or cocoa with marshmallows.

Today, Halloween has taken on a new horror ... a real horror ... the kind where poison is hidden in candy, and Trick Or Treating children are at risk from threats, assault, or worse.  Many parents fear to let their children participate in this American holiday.

However, there is a plethora of Americans who refuse to surrender to random acts of domestic terrorism and imbecility. Instead, many families and even entire neighborhoods are transitioning to a new Halloween, which uses Games ... Movies ... Prizes ... and of course, Trick Or Treating, but in a much safer manner. This is how it works. Game tournaments modeled on Olympic contests consisting of three to ten events are grouped into major categories ...  -more-

What Do Celts, Druids & Samhain Have To Do With the history of Halloween?

Sugar highs ... weird clothes ... Trick Or Treating ... free candy and lots of fun ... that's probably how most of us think about Halloween, but in fact, Halloween's origin dates back centuries ago. The granddaddy of all Halloweens was an ancient Celtic festival known as - Samhain, pronounced as "sow-in." It was from this unlikely beginning that our Halloween was born.

The origins of Halloween began about 2,000 years ago with  Celtic people living in the areas of modern day northern France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. November 1st, marked the Celtic New Year’s beginning and was celebrated with Samhain. This celebration signified the end of harvest time and summer. It also told the forthcoming of dark and cold winter, which the Celts regarded as the season of death. They also believed the night before Samhain, was a twilight period, an ambiguous blurring between worlds of the living and dead. It was during this day of October 31st, in which the dead returned to earth and could cause trouble and wreak havoc or benevolently pass.

This twilight period was also thought to be favorable for conversing with spirits and foreseeing events influencing Celtic lives.  Believing their Druid priests to be oracles, the Celts took great stock in Druid prophecies. Celts relied upon Druids to understand and interpret a multitude of mysteries as they unraveled during this twilight between living and dead. Hoping to appease their gods, Celts celebrated by burning crops and sacrificing animals in bonfires built by the Druids. Part of their celebration included wearing costumes made from animal heads and skins. It was believed their fortune could be foretold by the costumes they wore. When the celebration ended, Celts carried embers from the sacred bonfires to light the fires in their homes and shield them from harsh winter months.

Following Roman conquest, Celts were ruled for nearly 400 years by their invaders. During this time Samhain was combined with two Roman festivals. Feralia, as one festival was called, was a day late in October set aside for remembering the dead. The second festival honored Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. Her symbol is the apple, which was integrated into the Samhain celebration. Perhaps, this may explain our modern practice of bobbing for apples on Halloween. 

As the Christian religion spread into Celtic lands, around the year 800 A.D., Pope Boniface IV proclaimed November 1st as, All Saints' Day. This was to be a period for honoring martyrs and saints. Theologians and historians question if the pope was earnestly commemorating martyrs and saints or trying to replace the Celtic Samhain with a church sponsored holiday. All Saints' was also known as All-Hallows or All-Hallowmas   Over a period of time the night before became All-Hallows Eve which eventually, would be replaced with the modern holiday, Halloween. 

During this transition, in the year 1000 A.D., the church named November 2nd, All Souls' Day, to honor the deceased. Celebrating similarly to Samhain, the revelers lit bonfires, marched in parades, and dressed in costumes of devils, saints, and angels. Eventually, the three celebrations combined in the history of Halloween and were known as, Hallowmas.

Another significant influence on Halloween occurred as European immigrants brought different customs to America. Halloween celebrations met head-on with unyielding Protestant beliefs and resulted in hobbled hobgoblins and a scaled down Halloween. With a bit of conjecture and interpretation, one succumbs to the opinion that regardless of their purpose, holidays survived religious scrutiny because they were one of the few ways people could celebrate, have fun, and be happy. In a comparatively austere world of few entertainments or amusements, holidays were a vibrant outlet for all concerned and an escape from daily drudgery. This perhaps is a veiled rebuttal to the contention that Halloween is a pagan festival for worshipping evil ... nope, it’s just people wanting to have fun. Don't make it complicated. Worshipping evil takes lots of work, while Trick Or Treating ... well, that's just plain fun.

The idea of celebration and having fun was woven not only into the European social fabric, but in Native American culture as well. As these two diverse cultures found a common ground in celebrations, public events erupted to celebrate bountiful harvests while people joined together in a sense of community and fellowship. Dancing and singing were common entertainments along with neighbors telling stories and sharing common tales. While autumn festivals were common, not all Colonists understood or celebrated Halloween. Those who did celebrate Halloween did so with ghost stories, and tales of mischief while sharing food and drink.

Halloween’s popularity resurged in the late 1800's as European immigrants flooded into America. Among them were the Irish fleeing Ireland's great potato famine. People needed inexpensive celebrations to uplift their spirits. Borrowing from Irish and English traditions, many Americans garbed themselves in Halloween costumes and went door-to-door asking for money, food, tobacco, or whatever a household could spare. 

Some did so for amusement while others did so for necessity. Whatever the reason, this practice ingrained Trick Or Treating with American culture followed by a transformation from superstition, witches, ghosts, and mischievous pranks to a holiday celebrating people and community.

Today, as this priceless part of our heritage is besieged by acts of mindless violence and terror, loyal Americans are making a stand by not capitulating to the misdeeds of a few distraught individuals. Instead, we are finding alternative ways to celebrate Halloween. By defending our right to celebrate time-honored traditions we affirm that this nation and our way of life belong to us only as long as we choose to defend them. 

God bless America and Happy Halloween!