All in all, it’s a pretty nice night for most kids and grownups, but one must still beware of the sick few who do what they can to damage people, traditions and upset the peace of local communities. Every town has their fair share of sick, deranged beings and Billerica is no exception as the sex offender registry will clearly demonstrate.

Putting the downside aside for a moment, have you ever wondered how we came to celebrate Hallowe’en? The holiday was once a pagan festival of the Celts, a people who once occupied territory now known as Ireland, the United Kingdom and France. The festival came about as part of a sacrificial rite to their pagan god where animals and crops were offered up in the hope of protection from the evils of the long, dark winter.

The festival was called Samhain and occurred on the evening of October 31st when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to the earth as the end of the harvest merged with the beginning of winter to bring on the dark half of the year. The people would put out the fires of their home hearths and attend the festival where giant bonfires were set by the Druids and maintained throughout the night.

As the fires burned their sacrifices and lit up the night sky, people wore costumes, mostly animal in origin, and tried to tell each other’s fortune. At the end of the evening, people would return home with burning sticks from the sacred bonfires and use them to relight their home fires with the hope that the spirits would endow them with good health and good luck throughout the winter and beyond.

How did Hallowe’en come to America and morph into the celebration that it is today? We’ll go through that in the next chapter as I have to get to work and earn my keep.