Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. 

While not as full of family and love as most of the other ones I enjoy throughout the year, it is hands down the most fun.

What other time of the year can people dress as they aren’t? 

Go and take candy from strangers? Roam the streets in full costume and jay walk in front of smiling police?

Only Halloween. 

Even the adults in my town get into it, handing out shots as people go around with their children.

The smiles, the shrieks, the ghoulish good times. The music hilarious, the snack food outrageous.

Halloween is a chance to celebrate, eat too much chocolate and scare each other. At least, in the places where I’ve lived through the years.

But I was surprised to find out years ago that very few places actually celebrate my favorite holiday. 

Halloween is in my blood.

It’s been celebrated by my ancestors for centuries, as a time when the veil between the living and dead is thinner, where the dead could visit the living, and offerings of food and drink were left to appease the spirits.

In today’s offerings of chocolate and sweets to prevent a trick, I see echoes of a more serious day, 

when people lit fires to chase away the same creatures we now welcome to our door with the greeting,

Happy Halloween!