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ESL forum >
Message board > Halloween
Halloween
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aliciapc
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Halloween
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I work at a catholic school and we don �t celebrate Halloween. I was wondering if it �s the same all around the world ... just curious !
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26 Oct 2012
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miss K.
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Don �t feel sorry about that! You can explain to your students the reason for not celebrating it. Some schools in my part of the world may plan some activities on this day. |
26 Oct 2012
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sugarpasa
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I heard something like that from my polish colleague that they don �t celebrate Halloween sice being a catholic however I couldn �t make out the reason,and definitely will be grateful to know the reason miss K.
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26 Oct 2012
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MarionG
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I am not one to get into religeous disputes (too much of that where I live if you ask me ) but I do find it interesting to learn more about �what makes people tick � (or in this case �trick �  )
As far as I understood, halloween (all hallow �s eve) is actually a christian, even catholic festival in origin and only later a �pagan � connection was made. Funnily enough, I learned this by reading one of the contributions on the subject here on ESLp. I found the description interesting and looked into it a little further. I found this interesting article:
I know one shouldn �t believe everything one finds on google and, again, I don �t intend to get into any religeous argument but since some of you expressed interest, I thought to share....
oh, and to answer the question of the original post, Halloween is not celebrated in Israel at all as far as I know.(even though I might give a reading comprehension about it, just to enrich their world )
I grew up in Holland and it was never celebrated there either (but that may have changed over the last 20 years since i�ve left - I understand Christans in Holland now have Santa bring gifts as well, that wasn�t the case 20 years ago either) |
27 Oct 2012
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yanogator
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That �s interesting about Santa, Marion, especially since the name Santa Claus derives from the Dutch for Saint Nicholas. Yes, All Hallows � Eve (shortened to Hallowe �en) is the eve (the night before) the Catholic holiday of All Saints � Day, which is November 1. It wasn �t until the 20th century that neopagans and other non-Catholics decided to "take over" the day, so there isn �t a history in the Catholic church against the celebrations. Bruce |
27 Oct 2012
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aliciapc
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Thank you Marion, really interesting. The reason, to put it simply, is that people get dressed in costumes to "scare away" evil spirits which come to haunt the living ... That �s why it doesn �t "agree" with Catholic beliefs, as they don �t believe in ghosts or witches or evil spirits coming to earth (though there are many already on earth, worse than those who may come on oct 31st if you ask me ;-) On the other hand, they celebrate Santa by buying gifts which is absolutely commercial (not many Catholics go to mass on Christmas day and see the "real" Christmas celebration!) so why not Halloween which has become commercial, too, and a reason for partying ? Thanks for the information! |
27 Oct 2012
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MarionG
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@bruce: Very true, but the Dutch (and some Belgians) celebrate St Nicolas day on the 5th of December and it has nothing to do with Christmas. It is in honor of some saint who brought back to live the kids of a butcher. (the butcher had slaughtered them because he didn �t have enough meat to sell or somthing like that...) |
27 Oct 2012
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sugarpasa
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Thank you Marion and Yanogator for this brief information.Admittedly I still feel kind of confused. Aynway rest is the matter of other topic :-s
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28 Oct 2012
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miss K.
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aliciapc, though both holidays are commercial just check out symbols for Christmas and Halloween, and see which ones are more appealing, pleasent, nice to look at and imply more of dark powers. Halloween was first a pagan holiday and only later this date was used to celebrate a Christian holiday to have more followers. |
31 Oct 2012
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