I am a practicing witch, Wiccan, pagan, whatever you want to call it. It's difficult to properly celebrate Samhain/Halloween when you are dealing with a serious religious holiday that has been twisted into someting that is all about getting & not at all anything to do with the real meaning. Think Easter or Christmas from a Christian perspective. The message gets lost under all the gimmes.
I was against trick or treating for years because it undermines the importance of the holiday. One aspect of the way one group celebrated has been blown all out of proportion & it's irritating. But I've let that go & now my kids dress up and go trick or treating at the local 'trunk or treat' at the high school. We're rural, you couldn't go door to door if you want too. We stick to non-scary costumes & costumes are made from whatever is at hand in the house, partly because I don't want to make a big deal about the dressing up thing. Plus those were the sorts of costumes DH & I grew up wearing & putting your outfit together was a large part of the fun of Halloween. I don't want to deny them the fun of trick or treating & things but Samhain is a holy day &i'm trying to get that across too.
To celebrate the religious significance of Samhain, we have a silent supper with an emptry place set in memory of those we have lost this year. This is the time of year for remembering them, for sharing stories of them, for celebrating them. It is a time of closure and of ending before the cycle of life begins again with the birth of the god at Yule.
It's semi-silent actual because little boys can't manage full silence.
Then we sit outside, light the jack o lanterns and talk about those who have passed. Mostly DH talks about his parents, who died before the boys were born and I talk about my grandparents. Last year we also shared memories of our cat Buddah who had died a couple months earlier. We talk about things we want to let go of, bad habits or patterns of behavior and what we can do to make those changes. We keep the more complex mysteries out of it for now. When they are older they will learn about the dying & reborn God and about the time of the Crone. Sometimes there is some drumming & dancing around the pumpkins, depends on who is with us. Then we say a prayer of remembrance and ask for the gods blessing and go inside to bed.
