I must confess, I don´t really like Halloween… And I particularly don´t like the fact that it is changing our own local traditions – and I happen to have experienced Halloween in the 70ies as a kid in Germany – in the American army barracks, where the tradition was celebrated I was invited to join the children. I dressed up as a little German witch. I did not wear a black dress and the absurd black hat, but a colorful layered skirt, a headscarf and a besom…
Infinite sweets
At the time I thought it was great to get so many otherwise unavailable American sweets: Hershey bars and M&Ms, Butterfingers and Reese Butternutcups… Poptarts however I considered something closer to glue than to chew… But I wasn´t really thrilled about having to scare others and the trick or treat thing – it seemed like blackmail to me and I thought that this was one of the reasons, why among the sweets was always also some odd stuff, that my parents used to take away: like little plastic tanks…
When we moved to Bonn a few years later I became acquainted with a tradition that I thought much nicer and more beautiful. In contrast to the primarily protestant Stuttgart the primarily catholic Rhineland celebrates the 11th of November (which is not only the official beginning of the carnival season at 11:11 o’ clock no less…) as the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours. The legends and songs about the saint all report his generosity, kindness and spirit of sharing: once he cut his knight´s cape in two pieces with his sword and gave one half to a poor freezing man in the snow…
Saint Martin rocks!
Around this date many regions in Germany celebrate the Saint with a procession – with brass bands and a dressed up Martin on a white horse (interestingly enough often a member of the local carnival club) who dressed up as a knight – of course with a cape – rides a horse at the beginning of the procession. He is followed by the children of the community who all carry their self-made lanterns, often a school art project for the fall term. And all sing the traditional songs supported by the brass band. The procession ends at a place where the St. Martin´s bonfire is lit. Afterwards the children traditionally go from house to house, carrying their lit lanterns and singing the traditional songs. In turn they receive sweets. So basically it´s about sharing music and sweets. In our home we used to carve out sugar beets, which we had collected from the field ourselves (stolen is too harsh a word for three beets…). That´s not quite as easy as cutting out a pumpkin, but it looks equally fantastic with a candle insight and particularly great if one carves out the upper part of the roots too!
Local traditions
However there are some creatures who are not as fond of St. Martin – despite the kind spirit. There are so-called “Weckmänner” – “Breadmen” – a sweet yeast pastry in the shape of a little guy smoking a little white clay pipe. (Nobody really knows why – other than making it easier to identify him as being male…) distributed among the kids – and then are eaten by brutally tearing off his head and taking out his raisin eyes – especially delicious with butter and cinnamon… and the so-called Martin´s geese – who then are slaughtered and accompanied by bread dumplings and red cabbage they also find their way into the human digestive system.
But hey, the Americans celebrate Thanksgiving also with many lovely traditions – that however are at the expense of turkeys…
Why we like creepy stuff
In order to explore the popularity of horror films I once wrote a paper at college about the “Pleasure of fear”. To this day it is true that in most horror films the gender roles are clearly distributed: a woman is the victim, one man the perpetrator and another the rescuer…
It therefor actually is a version of the old “damsel-in-distress, threatened by a dragon, rescued by a hero” theme.
The more evil the dragon, the more heroic appears the rescuer… And it is a proven fact that young men at the ages 16-25 like taking their dates to horror movies, for in the rough moments the date can then lean against his strong shoulders or take his hand… There is even an official scientific term for this, called “snuggle theory of horror” – that was already remarked upon by Ovid watching gory gladiator fights in the Roman circus, where the frightened ladies would crave the protection of a strong men and opened up to him – right down to sexual privileges…
And of course watching it is rather comfortable to watch a horror film from a seat in the movie theatre or the couch at home, because one finally realizes that one´s own life is so much more peaceful…if one has overcome the initial paranoia standing alone under the shower or being in an underground car park late at night…
Real and pretended horror
When we watch a film – and that includes any horror film – our brain cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and watching somebody else having it: so we are scared with the hero and run our fingers into our seat or the arm of our date… Only to realize in the end, it was only a game, it´s over…and was only a film – how redeeming! But we were able to feel perhaps partly deep seated and subconscious fears and digested them – and are more appreciative of our own life. That is usually – hopefully – much less threatening…and because of that perhaps sometimes even boring… But the next horror film cometh soon!
For some people feeling creeped out is even eroticizing. It is a wellknown fact that vampires have an erotic dimension…when their white teeth run into the tender neck of their innocent victim and the red blood drops glow…
Therefore dressing up as a skeleton, a vampire, monsters of all kinds makes total sense – and is also – at least a little in the spirit of the original Halloween, the night before November 1st – Samhain according to celtic tradition and marks the beginning of winter – and the veil between the worlds is particularly thin and one has to make sure that all evil spirits are scared off…
Humor is part of it too
Which reminds me of a lovely picture that showed up on my German facebook today: a closed gate at a cemetery with the text: “Closed all day on Halloween due to a company outing.”
And the creativity for Halloween costumes is amazing – it´s unbelievable what some people can make of a bit of make-up, artificial blood and lots of patience.
However there is something I really do not understand about Halloween costumes: especially in the US children love disguising themselves as their favorite hero. American friends have tried several times to explain it to me, saying that it´s also a day where you can be whoever you want – but don’t we have carnival for that? In our middle European carnival we used to dress up as our dream…or nightmare characters – I was mostly Miss Piggy…
But if it´s all about creeping people out and scaring evil spirits away – why then dress up as a princess? I believe some dragons might really like princesses… On the other hand…considering the sheer number of colored net lace bundles, that might be creepy. I enjoyed an American posting on FB today suggesting that every time a little Elsa (A hero from the movie “Frozen” – her popularity inspired a blog entry) showed up at your door to have a drink…
An idea
Dear American friends:
Your fat red Father Christmas with the white beard already has supremacy over Christmas. Even though he is an invention by Coca Cola from the 1920ies – hence the colors and is rooted in the tradition of Saint Nicholas. However St. Nick is actually celebrated on the 6th of December… Your Santa Claus edged out our Christchild – for we Europeans actually celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus Christ… And initially it was the Christ child who secretly and invisibly under the tree. BTW: on Christmas Eve, the 24th of December and not, as I have also experienced, throughout the Christmas Season accumulating under the tree until the 25th… when you unwrap them. I actually like for the presents to collect under the tree… it´s a pretty sight. However torture for children…
Since there are so many American films and television shows where you celebrate your holidays of course, it is hard to maintain the regional tradition when the media have such a strong influence.
So I think it´s high time you in turn accept some of our traditions. Perhaps we can even exchange them – and not only one way like the commercial circus of Halloween and Valentine´s day…but that´s another story.
Real cultural exchange!
We keep celebrating Halloween and wear your silly black witch hats…and you in turn start making lanterns and sing and write songs about sharing, kindness and generosity.
We shall also start celebrating Thanksgiving even though we have no native people whose (food)culture we have to honor, and you will start exercising real carnival. Not the part with the parades – you already have far more parades than we do, but awarding medals for a supreme sense of humor and glory conferences where the political events are rehashed in a humorous way can be much more sustainable than your daily late night sketches…
And in all places people shall have a choice what exactly they´d like to celebrate. I imagine little stickers on front doors, that inform us who is celebrating what. Each sticker shows a little icon that expresses the preferences of the household. Those who have all stickers celebrate all, those who don´t have any nothing and nobody shall ever ring their doorbell for festive reasons!
And whoever wants to participate can do that to the degree s/he enjoys: moderate Halloween fans only have sticker with the pumpkin icon, more strongly committed fans can disguise themselves… Moderate Christmas fans have the icon with a Christmas tree and with more commitment they can decorate their houses with Christmas lights etc. Moderate St. Martin fans just have an icon with the little bread guy, more strongly committed people can set up lanterns in their gardens… For Thanksgiving a sticker with a turkey, for Chanukkah a candelabra with nine candles, for the Muslim sugar feast a little half moon etc.
These ideas will probably remain a dream, even though there might be more modern versions, i.e. entries into google earth at which address one is allowed to appear on what occasion…
…But that does seem like science fiction and therefor allows the fantasy that the nice traditions can go from local to global… The Halloween pumpkin and the fat red Christmas guy showed us how it works…now it´s the turn of Martin´s lanterns and fool hats…
And anyway: Happy Halloween!
