It's Halloween time again.
Legend has it that All Hallow's Eve was a night when souls would walk the Earth and we would dress in costume to scare off the spirits. It marks the Fall Harvest Season.
With Halloween come traditions.
Guising or Trick -or-Treating at Halloween in Scotland is in 1895, where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit and money.[2]
Jack-o-Lanterns originated from the carving of turnips into lanterns was done to remember the souls in Purgatory.
Guising was also known as Souling where in England and Ireland children would go from house to house singing and saying prayers for the dead.
One of the origins of Souling may have come from the Christmas tradition of Wasseling.
Here in Nanticoke, as most everywhere else, this is as well true. And perhaps a new tradition maybe being born. Center Street in Nanticoke was a place for friends and neighbors to gather and celebrate one of the most popular holidays of the year. It was not intended as such but has become somewhat of a block party where you must come in costume and you must have fun. The children may not understand the origins of the holiday and it it is not necessary. But, if you do and if you choose to, it is time to celebrate the lives of those you have loved and lost in a spiritual, fun and happy way.
