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Week 5: Halloween

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As ever year, when 1st of November is coming, the discussion about Holloween starts. Since Halloween has came to Poland it rose criticism among traditionalists. The most critical is Christian Church. In it's opinion ghosts, vampires, witches and pumpkin lanterns are offensive to reflective nature of the Saints day. As it's pagan originated festival according to the Church participation in Halloween is a sin. At the same time Halloween is a national holiday in Ireland, pompously celebrated also in England, Australia, the USA, New Zealand and Scotland. There are diffrent customs depending on country. However recently the commercialization in American style it's easy to notice. Milions of people around the world dress up as monsters, vampires and skeletons, having fun on parties or walking from door to door asking for candies. Nowadays Halloween is the perfect entertainment and on the other hand a great business.

Personally I think there is nothing wrong with that festival. Although I have never taken part in such event to me is somehow similar to our Andrzejki. Maybe we do not dress up as some scary monsters, but there are plenty of pagan customs, believes and prophecies as well as in traditional (not this american style) Halloween. What's more to me we do not have to give up our tradition to take part in Halloween. I think we can easly mix this new western event with Christian one. We can have fun on 31th of October and the next day calmly visit cemeteries wondering on life passing. No matter what Church claims people do not worship devil. Of course there are some exception, but satanizm exists beyond Halloween. There is also one psychological Holloween benefit, familiarization with the death. It might be not so crucial for adults but for children, which are afraid of such stuff it might be really important stage of growth.


What is your opinion about Halloween? Did you celebrate it this year? If yes, please tell us how.

Comments

Sergio Cosentino said…
I believe Halloween can be a lot of fun, so why not celebrate it? To be honest I don't connect any holidays or celebrations with the church, even if they actually are connected. I am not much of a believer myself, but I really enjoy Christmas eve or Easter. I think that it's not the origin of the festival that's important, not anymore anyway. I think that any festival, celebration or holiday are fine as long as they make people feel good in some way. On Halloween we can have fun, the next day we can get closure with our departed, on Christmas we meet with our family. I think these are the important things about these festivities, not they're connections (or lack of connections for that matter) to the church and religion. So, summing up, as long as it's fun in any way, why not celebrate it? Oh, and as long as it doesn't hurt anybody in the process! :P
3 November 2013 at 11:02
Tomek Niezgoda said…
My sister has an English school and organizes events during Halloween. It's actually pretty fun to see what they prepare. There's always candy and games. Kids dress up as monsters. I can easily understand why it's more popular than our holiday and I doubt this will change soon. I guess the only other holidays that get so much attention are Christmas and Easter. I'm not a very religious person and I only ever go to the cemetery or church with my parents or relatives when they come to visit. However, I'm always ready for eating candy in the shape of bats, spider webs and vampire teeth.
3 November 2013 at 15:13
diana said…
Sergio has a point here, saying that as long as it makes people feel good, it's ok.
As for religious context, it seems to be quite related to christianity, etymology has some christian origin (according to wikipedia), and the general idea behind is to get people familiarized with death, so I don't really understand how someone can see anything evil or anti-christian in Halloween. Also, I wonder if reactions of christian church in USA (or some other western countries) towards Halloween are so extreme and negative as those in Poland. I don't know, but I'd bet that they aren't, which would mean that a huge part of what christian church says about it is deeply rooted in the culture, not in the religion itself. And that would undermine their arguments against Halloween a bit.
Personally I think Halloween is fun and interesting, it requires some creativity and effort to make your own unique costume, and is certainly one of few festivals that are very attractive for kids. Maybe those adults who don't like it should try to take example from kids and learn how to have fun, whatever the reason is.
3 November 2013 at 15:54
Seisyll said…
Huh, it's funny that most people say that our holidays originate from Christianity. Most of the festivals are actually originated on what people believed before Christianity, becuase it was hard get rid of traditions. It was either that or build up new tradition on top of the other. That's why even though there are Christians worlwide, wherever you go you can experience differences in the same holidays. Great example is said Halloween and Saints day.
As for my opinion about Halloween, I agree with Sergio. Festivals were made for people to relax and feel good. Too bad that our Slavonic version "Dziady" of this festivity didn't make it to our times. Yes, it is the same thing as A. Mickiewicz described in "Dziady" part 3.
3 November 2013 at 18:31
Paweł Jóźwiak said…
I think that there is no conflict between Halloween and 1st of November. The statement that those who are having parties an Halloween don’t pay adequate respect to those we honor on the 1st of November is just absurd. All this wrangle is caused by the Catholic Church and some fanatic false authorities that are simply afraid of something they don’t understand . they are just afraid of losing their position in the society. They think that by telling everybody around them that some western customs are evil and thy threaten our traditional way of life (in their opinion of coerce ) they will stop some social changes in our society. But those changes are inventible. And I see nothing wrong in it.

Of course paying respect to those who died should be natural for all people. If somebody does otherwise I think it is not because off the Halloween and even if we forbid Halloween parties his behavior won’t change.

But as I wrote at the beginning Halloween doesn’t excludes celebrating 1st of November in the proper way.
3 November 2013 at 18:39
lukasz-anwajler said…
I don't celebrate Halloween, but I don't care if others do. If invited to this kind of party - I wouldn't hesitate, because I don't see anything wrong with it, for me it's like medieval 'memento mori' thing. Actually, I think it can be fun, I really like costumes some people prepare and they can be very creative about it. I need to try it next year. I agree with Michal that Christian traditions often take after other religions and there is nothing wrong about it.
3 November 2013 at 19:44
Unknown said…
It all depends on how you celebrate it and what is your approach to dead people. In my opinion there is nothing bad in Halloween. I even thing that hat is better and maybe newer way to celebrate the ones who passed away and think of your own mortality. When i will die i would like people to laugh with good memories rather than cry that i am no loger here. It's better for people who sill live. Nowadays we have too much reasons to worry. We can make 31st of October a day of happiness. But i am not sure how it will work in cities. Sure it looks cool in movies where children go from door to door in place where all neighbors know each other but will it work in big cities blocks.... I am not sure about it.
3 November 2013 at 20:10
alt_pl said…
It may be harsh but I think Halloween is commercial holiday made for people whose country didn't have any traditions so they created it. Honestly, how many of us even heard of traditional polish pagan holiday like Dziady (not counting Mickiewicz's book)? We have beautiful tradition of Andrzejki which can be more fun than roaming aimlessly... I am very against Halloween, not by any religious matter (it is fun after all and shouldn't be treated by any form of satanism or whatever) but I am against many Western traditions which replace ours. But that is my opinion. If someone likes it - celebrate it! :)
- Aleksander Towcik
3 November 2013 at 21:19
armandstanczak said…
Halloween is not something bad. I think it really depends on people and how they cope with the idea of fun Halloween. On one hand we have to keep 1 November as a wistful day and spend our time on thinking about people that we lost in our lives, and on the other we have almost the whole world celebrating! If we want to be so conservative, we should remember about people every day and not only this one specific day. To polish people, it’s only important to set some candles, place some flowers and other items on graves.
I don’t see why shouldn’t we implement this day to out the calendar. It would be awesome. It could make us at least a little happier ;)
Cheers
3 November 2013 at 21:24
Unknown said…
I never celebrated Halloween but still I think there is nothing wrong in it. Most of Polish people don’t even know where this “celebration” came from and what it exactly means. I don’t know either. I am okay with kids running around to collect some sweats with funny or scary costumes. Even a little trick is fine. But like Armand said the most important in this period is to remember and think about those who left.
3 November 2013 at 21:42
Natalia said…
As Michał Wągrodzki and alt_pl said we have our slavic Hallowen - Dziady. It is very sad that we do not have much information about it and we do not propagate this festival which have more in common to our tradition than Halloween or even Catholic feast. For me it is very unfair from church site to "demonize" events like Halloween and even treat like sins - it is enought to make their feast in same time they should let people to choose or give a chance to participate in both. We have to use common sense here, not as catholic but as humans. As Sergio Cosentino said if no one get hurt it is ok to have fun get dressed and party :)
I don't celebrate Halloween, but I appreciate cosplayers and I always like to watch images of their makeups/costumes :)
3 November 2013 at 22:10
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