Every Election year here in the USA, we are treated to the totally false  narrative that there is a ” War on Christmas. ”

The  HUMONGOUS LIE is that you are not allowed to say, ” Merry Christmas “, that you can’t jingle your bells, that you can’t ho ho ho.

Of course that is all Hogwash and Poppycock.

There was only ever one  outright war on a holiday- there was a war on Halloween waged by the Christians and guess what- the Pagans lost.

The Halloween that we celebrate and that I do dearly and truly love bears no resemblance to  Samhain. Regardless, there are people who celebrate Samhain and those festivals are pretty awesome, but the sad truth is once the Festival of the Dead was sanitized, the flavor and the spirit of that celebration were lost. It was stamped out, it is no more.

That being said, some Christian sects won’t say the ” H ” word. They call it Harvest this or Fall that and if they throw a party and invite you, there is a dress code. You can’t dress up as Devils or Witches, I’m not sure where they fall on Vampires and Zombies.  However, I used to work in a  Halloween shop and we used to sell halos and angel’s wings and clown costumes and cowboys to customers attending, ” Family Fall Festival Night ” or whatever the heck they called it. So you know, you could wear a costume as long as it was ‘family friendly’ and didn’t hint at S-E-X.

I’ve been to those Family Festivals too, I’m not sure why it is, but at the pot lucks, they always served Nachos with the works and it was always pretty tasty. Plus it was fun. No kidding. Also, most of those festivals played the same games as the ones at the darker versions of their party- which I found curious.

In the end this new version of Halloween, and it wears many masks ( which is fitting, when you think about it ). Celebrating it in the way you chose to really does speak to the spirit of the holiday.

But it would be fitting, on this night,  to take a moment to spare a thought and light a candle to the long gone  Ghost of Halloween.