Just a few days more until Halloween.  It is raining now.  We’ve yet a hard frost here in the Fox River Valley.  The trick or treat experience for children depends upon the weather.  Adults hope that the evening will be without inclement weather and not too cold.  It is late October after all.

More facts about the origins of trick-or-treating:

There is much debate around the origins of trick-or-treating, but generally there are three theories. The first theory suggests that during Samhain, Celtic people would leave food out to appease the spirits traveling the Earth at night. Over time, people began to dress as these unearthly beings in exchange for similar offerings of food and drink. 

The second theory speculates that the candy boon stems from the Scottish practice of guising, which is a secular version of “souling.” During the Middle Ages, generally children and poor adults would collect food and money from local homes in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls’ Day. Guisers dropped the prayers in favor of non-religious practices with the inclusion of songs, jokes, and other “tricks.”

A third theory argues that modern American trick-or-treating stems from “belsnickeling,” a German-American Christmas tradition where children would dress in costume and then call on their neighbors to see if the adults could guess the identities of the disguised. In one version of the practice, the children were rewarded with food or other treats if no one could identify them.  – Library of Congress

A parenthetical comment.  The secularization of society generation by generation is obvious in this transformation, the change in the back story of trick-or-treating.  Food for the wandering spirits of the dead to “guess who I am, or give me a sweet treat.”  Progress or regress?  You decide.

These photos were taken at a neighbors home, the winner of Batavia’s Halloween House Decorating Contest:

Is there a song, another tune that we can hold onto?  Indeed there is! this one parallels the “trick-or-treat” theme does it not?  “Strangers/shadows searching in the night…”  Perhaps my humor is twisted…  “Oh, the movie never ends.”  Indeed!

Don’t Stop Believin’

By Journey

Just a small-town girl
Livin’ in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin’ anywhere

Just a city boy
Born and raised in South Detroit
He took the midnight train goin’ anywhere

A singer in a smokey room
The smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on, and on, and on

Strangers waiting
Up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night

Streetlights people
Livin’ just to find emotion
Hidin’ somewhere in the night

Workin’ hard to get my fill
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin’ anything to roll the dice just one more time

Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on, and on, and on

Strangers waiting
Up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night

Streetlights people
Livin’ just to find emotion
Hidin’ somewhere in the night

Don’t stop believin’
Hold on to that feelin’
Streetlight people

Don’t stop believin’
Hold on
Streetlight people

Don’t stop believin’
Hold on to that feelin’
Streetlight people