Mishmash is an old expression for a collection or mixture of unrelated things. Another word for this is hodgepodge.

Halloween is a mishmash. A hodgepodge. A number of different things all mixed together.

Halloween, as we all know, is a holiday that takes place on October 31st each year. Its beginnings are parts of some very old traditions from different times and parts of the world.

If we could look back 2,000 years in the northwest part of Europe, we would see Celtic people celebrating the end of summer in a tradition called Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced SAH-win). Samhain actually means “summer’s end.”

Because winter was a dark, cold, and often gloomy time, people got together before winter started to eat food and sing and dance. In winter, the days are shorter and nights are longer, so the first of November was known as “the light that loses, the night that wins.”

In some villages, people would let the fires in their fireplaces burn out, then go to a party that had a huge bonfire. After the party, people would take fire from the bonfire home and use it to re-light their fireplaces.

Some people believed that during Samhain, a door was opened into the underworld and spirits of dead people could come into our world. So there was a custom to put drinks and food out in front of houses so the spirits would leave you alone.

Also, during Samhain, some people would dress up in costumes so the spirits of the dead wouldn’t recognize them. And some people would dress up and pretend to be dead, so they could eat and drink the offerings left for the spirits.

You can already see how Samhain could evolve into Halloween. But Halloween is a mishmash, remember? Other things became part of it.

When the Roman Empire conquered the Celtic people, Samhain got mixed in with some Roman customs, such as a festival called Feralia, in which people honored their dead. And also a Roman festival that celebrated a goddess, Pomona, who they believed controlled orchards and the harvest.

Okay, that’s a mishmash of three things, but there are more.

Later on, two religious holidays were celebrated by Catholics: All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

All Saints Day was March 13 and honored saints who had made it to heaven. Another word for a saint is a hallow (meaning a holy thing or person), so the holiday was sometimes called All Hallows Day. In the 700s, Pope Gregory III moved All Hallows Day from March 13 to November 1. The night before All Hallows Day was called All Hallows Eve. (The same way that these days we call the evening before Christmas, Christmas Eve).

All Hallows Eve was a shortened form of All Hallows Evening, meaning the evening before All Hallows Day. Guess what that got shortened to? Hallowe’en

The second, and related, holiday is All Souls Day. It honored people who had died, but not yet made it to heaven. It was on November 2.

All these things, which happened at the end of October or beginning of November, eventually got mixed together into what today we call Halloween.

In the 1900s, Halloween lost much of its ancient Celtic and religious meanings and turned into the fun holiday we know now. Trick-or-treating, going to costume parties, carving jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires, bobbing for apples, and watching scary movies are some of the things people like to do around Halloween.

The phrase we use when we show up in costumes and knock on doors is “Trick or Treat.” In earlier days, there were sometimes more tricks played on people then treats received. Today, things are different. When we say Trick or Treat, what we mean is we’d like a treat, please.

Fun Facts

•  Some schools, churches, and other organizations do what is called Trunk-er-Treat. Adults decorate the trunks of their cars (maybe as a giant mouth with huge cardboard teeth or the opening to a spooky cave) and put candy and treats in them. On Halloween day, young children and their parents can walk around a parking lot, from car to car, and Trick or Treat that way, which is fun and safer than going house to house at night.

•  People in Ireland and Scotland used to carve faces on turnips and display them. In America, they found that pumpkins were larger and easier to carve.

•  Day of the Dead (known as Día de Muertos in Spanish) is celebrated in Mexico and certain Central and South American countries around the end of October or beginning of November. On this holiday, Mexicans remember and honor their loved ones who have died. It’s not a gloomy or scary occasion, but rather a fun and festive and very colorful holiday.

•  A 2017 animated movie called Coco, from Pixar Studios,  is inspired by Mexico’s Day of the Dead.

•  The fear of Halloween is called Samhainophobia. The word is made up of two parts: samhain, the ancient Celtic festival; and phobia, which means fear.