Laura Fay: A Haunted Holiday

Laura Fay shares about her first experience with Halloween in California after moving from Ireland.

When I moved from Ireland to California, I got a spooky surprise on my first Halloween – adults in elaborate costumes during the daylight hours, and supermarkets exploding with fake cobwebs, cartoon ghosts, and mountains of candy. Radio ads blared on about “Halloween Super Sales,” and my neighbors turned their yards into elaborate graveyards. I found it dazzling, but strangely hollow.

I tried to reconcile this spectacle with the Halloween I had known back home that evolved from “Samhain,” the ancient Celtic festival marking the end of harvest and the beginning of winter. Two thousand years ago, our ancestors believed that on this night, the boundary between the living and the dead grew thin.

Halloween was a night of fire and mischief—bonfires in parks, lads tossing bangers, us kids dashing door to door in homemade witch costumes. When we knocked, we didn’t shout “Trick or Treat,” but implored, “Help the Halloween Party.”

Here, watching the parade of perfect store-bought disguises, I couldn’t help feel that America had taken our humble, ancient tradition and inflated it into a vast commercial pumpkin.

Over time, as I stood at my door handing out candy, I began to notice something familiar: the laughter, the shared delight and the moments of connection between strangers. Beneath the gloss and the glitter, there was still that flicker of communal joy — the sense of stepping into the dark with mischief and mirth.

Halloween hadn’t been stolen, only transformed. It had crossed an ocean and adapted to a new land. Turnips became pumpkins, bonfires became porch lights, costume wearers included adults, and yet the heart of it all endured.
I felt proud that our small Irish night of spirits had bewitched my adopted homeland.

With a Perspective, I’m Laura Fay.

Laura Fay is a retired technology executive, writer and environmental advocate. She lives in Los Altos.