I have a secret. I love Halloween. In an entirely sentimental, not-ironic way. I stocked up on lollies and icypoles for a week beforehand, making sure there were options for any dietary restrictions of the trick or treaters. I lined up a playlist of my favourite Halloween movies for after the last of the children came around. The plastic skull called Yorick I keep on my bookshelf took his place next to the bowls of lollies.
Halloween is starting to gain some traction in Australia. But sure as Halloween rolls around, every year there are people who love to grumble about Halloween and how it's destroying Australian culture, whatever that is.
I know the arguments. Halloween promotes 'bad eating' — like any holiday celebration is about making healthy food choices. Halloween is so American, they say, as though Australians isn't a multicultural community already steeped in a bunch of different cultural traditions, or that harvest festivals aren't celebrated in many different countries.
Not to mention that if we wanted to critique the Americanisation of Australia, better targets than a holiday about costumes and lollies would the number of American TV shows and films we watch to the detriment of the Australian industry, or the complicated implications of our American military ties.
Which brings me to the next criticism. Some detractors like to point out that Halloween is pagan and therefore shouldn't be celebrated by Christians. Google 'Halloween Catholic' and you'll get pages of results arguing that Halloween is or isn't Catholic.
Halloween comes from a complex mix of influences. Some Halloween traditions connect back to Samhain, the Celtic ritual celebrating the beginning of the dark half of the year, where bonfires were lit and costumes were worn to ward off spirits. Halloween or All Hallows Eve is also a Catholic feast day that dates back to the first century CE.
Like Christmas Eve, Halloween is the night before All Saints Day and then All Souls Day, part of Allhallowtide festival, celebrating the lives of saints and martyrs. Further, a lot of what makes up Halloween in popular culture now, like trick or treating and carving pumpkins, is a melting pot of European folk traditions.
"I find a lot of comfort in putting out the same decorations and watching the same movies. Embracing old traditions, creating my own."
Historians disagree whether Pope Gregory III moving this holiday to coincide with autumn festival was a deliberate attempt by the Church