Happy Halloween folks! Here’s a breakdown of what you’re probably going to do on everybody’s favorite scary holiday…well, almost everybody’s…ours is Valentine’s day, or as we call it, “buy your mom flowers and tell the florist they’re for you wife, but he secretly knows the truth…day”. Anyway, here’s how Halloween usually goes (by age group):

Under 13: you’re dressed as a Yoda, or a ninja, or a Dora The Tank Engine or something, and you’re walking door to door demanding candy from your neighbors.

13 to 17: you’re either throwing eggs at someone else’s hard earned property, or sitting at a really boring party wishing you had alcohol. By the way egg throwers, karma will get you. Trust us, when you get older and you actually own things, you’re going to be p.o.’ed when you have to wash yolk off of them because someone who still takes spelling tests thought it was funny.

18 to 28: you’re at a party drinking way too much for weekday, dressed in an overly topical costume that someday you will have to explain when showing pictures to your kid (“See son, people really like these things called iPads, and the guy that kind of helped to invent them had just died, and people were really into zombies. So I was Steve Job’s re-animated corpse inside an iPad, but it said “iDead” instead…get it?…I know son, I wish you were adopted too”)

Over 28: you’re the one getting candy demanded from you and/or walking the Powder Puff Rangers around; you’re the one whose stuff is getting egged; and you’re the one who’s calling the cops on the drunk idiot dressed as a zombie Ipad that’s passed out on your lawn on a Monday night.

Needless to say, Halloween has become more stupid and/or fun traditions, and less what it was originally about: Ghosts coming back from beyond the grave…seriously. All of that “All Hallows Eve” stuff didn’t pop up till 43 AD; the original Halloween was called Samhain (pronounced sow-in) and was a little too Druid-heavy for our liking.

Thousands of years ago in Ireland, before it was actually Ireland, the Celtics celebrated their new year on November 1st with the “Festival of Samhain”. This day marked the last day of summer, and the last day before the brutally cold winter; it also marked a day when the Celtics believed the line between the worlds of the living and the dead was blurred. So on the night of October 31st, they celebrated Samhain, the night the spirits of the dead returned to earth. These spirits were thought to cause trouble (make people go crazy, damage crops etc.), but they were also thought to make it easier for the Druids to see each others futures. The Druids were an order of somewhat barbaric Pagan priests who were known for human sacrifices, trying to possess people, possibly having supernatural powers, and possibly building Stonehenge; you know, like an Elk’s lodge, only pants-crappingly terrifying. During this event, the Druids would build huge bonfires and sacrifice animals to Celtic gods, and try to see into the future; again, just like an Elk’s lodge. During these celebrations, people would wear animal skins and other forms of costume in order to both honor the spirits they wanted the favor of, and to ward off those they were against. Like we said, Druids were some pretty creepy guys; guys who were so secretive of their practices that almost no records (other than second-hand info passed down trough the generations) or artifacts can be found to prove they even existed; let alone the full extent of the crazy stuff they were into. So long story slightly less long, the Druids were about as scary a group of people to ever walk the earth, and Halloween was their day to shine…and now we eat candy and stab pumpkins with safety knives, so yeah, samsies right?