My Middle Name is Halloween
by Nanci E. LaGarenne

I love Halloween. Always have. You might say I was born for it. While one grandmother got her wish for me to be her namesake, the American version of Nunziata, which is Nancy, my Irish grandmother chose my middle name. Samhain. Pronounced sowen (as in sew). It is the Celtic pagan name for the holiday of Halloween. The E. I use is for Elizabeth, my confirmation name. I picked that one for Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Elizabeth Montgomery of Bewitched.  I could hardly use Samhain in Catholic school.

Halloween was always important at my house growing up. There was the traditional trick or treating after school and a party in the basement to follow. Dancing, delicious homemade snacks, apple dunking, and of course candy. My mother made our costumes and did our make-up. “I want that beauty mark like Honey West,” I said, the year I was a gypsy. Mom obliged. My sisters were adorable little witches  and even my Uncle Mark borrowed a beatnik wig from my friend Maureen, and it is to this day one of my favorite pictures. Mom would dress up too, but that year she may have gone a bit over the top. We were settling down after the festivities when the doorbell rang. We thought Mom was downstairs throwing in a load of laundry. I lifted the curtain and saw a rather grown-up trick or treater. We were warned not to answer the door to adults we didn’t know. But it was Halloween.

I opened the screen door and a gruff voice in an overcoat  and hat said “Trick or Treat.” Then the “man” pushed the door to come in and my sisters and I screamed like banshees. My mother said “It’s me, girls!” My sister was beside herself, in shock really. My mother had to calm her down the rest of the night. Bad idea, the old man getup. We still talk about it and Mom still feels awful about it when we bring it up.

Halloween or All Hallow’s Eve, to some means parties and candy and mischief like egging and toilet paper strewing. Others believe it is the night that the veil between the living and the departed is thinnest. A perfect time to commune with passing ancestors or spirits, if you will. Still others, on Halloween,  mourn the massacre of “witches” all over the world once upon a time. Healers and intuitives who were put to death because they were deemed suspicious for their powers. It is a chapter of history we didn’t learn about in school. Only that wee bit about Salem. And what you see in the movies. Black magic and all that nonsense.

I continue the tradition of celebrating Halloween  or Samhain as the Celtic called it. Cards are sent out and costumes planned and decorating and the ceremonial fire and candle lighting. I honor my grandmothers and great grandmothers on that day. I invite them to drop by for a cup of tea, in the heart sense. I feel their presence. Spooky? Kooky? Not at all. But then it has never been a scary holiday for me, but rather festive and exciting and reverent,  all rolled into one. My mother, aka Bette Davis from Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, well that’s another story….  Happy Samhain!