this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
41 points (95.6% liked)

Casual Conversation

1676 readers
170 users here now

Share a story, ask a question, or start a conversation about (almost) anything you desire. Maybe you'll make some friends in the process.


RULES

Casual conversation communities:

Related discussion-focused communities

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FreydounHosseini@vegantheoryclub.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not really, we do Día de los Muertos where I live which is the day after. Halloween is celebrated here and it’s kind of become a week long event but it’s for children.

[–] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Fun fact! Halloween and Dia de los Muertoes are on the "same" day!

Halloween is "Hallow's Evening". ie the Evening of All Hallow's Day, aka All Saint's Day, and directly related to Dia de los Muertos. But it's the calendar day before, right? October 31st? Sort of. In Catholicism, the liturgical day begins and ends with prayers at sunset. The day had ended and a new day had begun, usually between 4pm and 6pm. So the order of the 24 hour day goes: evening, night, morning, afternoon. Therefore 6pm on the 1st of November would be too late to celebrate All Saint's Day, so it was actually celebrated the calendar day before.

The same is true of Christmas Eve. Why do we have the "Evening" of Christmas the day before? Why do many cultures begin full celebration the night before? Precisely because as a Christian event on a Christian calendar, that is when the day actually begins.

As a former Catholic it's important I acknowledge all of this overlays the local traditions syncretised into these far more secular 'holidays' today. It wouldn't be important for Halloween to be celebrated in the "e'en" if Oiche Samhain wasn't a night time thing.