Questioning Halloween.

There’s something I don’t understand about Halloween. I understand why we should choose to celebrate a particular festival on a given day because that’s what humans do, but what about its reputation?

Halloween is traditionally said to be the night on which the veil between this world and others is at its thinnest. It’s the night when ghosts gather, witches fly with gay abandon, and demons do their damndest to distress us. So why October 31^st?

If there really is a night when creepy things climb through the flimsy gauze of reality between this world and the nether regions, wouldn’t it be more likely to be on the night of some natural or cosmic event like a solstice or an equinox? Why the last night of October, since the calendar months are nothing more than a convenient human artifice?

It’s an important question, but not half as important as whether putting a glass of scotch and a piece of fruit cake out for the little people at Halloween is a wicked waste of good cake and whisky.