For many people Halloween is the first significant holiday since Easter, with the exception of perhaps the summer solstice or various bank holidays. On numerous levels it formally marks the end of lighter, warmer months as we transition into the darker, colder part of the year. Our evenings now take the form of a modern human hibernation as we sit aside roaring woodburners or are enveloped by the warmth of our central heating, devouring bowls of soothing comfort food.
Halloween has become a gateway to this change in our habits at this time of year. It is of no surprise then that it traditionally represents a time of change or transition. Behind the masks, tricks and treats it was traditionally seen as a point in which to venerate the dead. Whether it’s All Saints’ Day, the Christian festival celebrated to honour holy saints, or the Celtic festival of Samhain where ancestors are revered and the veil between the worlds of the dead and the living is said to be at its thinnest. It can be seen as a dark and brooding time or one that recognises and celebrates both the cycles of nature and of life itself.