Whether you have your own little monsters to set loose on the neighborhood or whether you gird the pantry for the onslaught of others, large quantities on candy will be handy.
If you get a crowd of creatures at your door, that's fine, but if you've prepped for a blitz and none comes, well .... let's just hope you bought some good chocolate.
But here's a little background, courtesy of our Wiki friends:
The feast of All Saints, on its current date, is traced to the foundation by Pope Gregory III (731–741) of an oratory in St. Peter's for the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world", with the day moved to November 1.
This usually fell within a few weeks of the Celtic holiday of Samhain.
Samhain marked the end of the harvest, the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half". The Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became thin on Samhain. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities as peasants and their livestock would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames.
The Gaelic custom of wearing costumes and masks, was an attempt to copy the spirits or placate them. In Scotland the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white. Samhnag — turnips which were hollowed-out and carved with faces to make lanterns — were also used to ward off harmful spirits.
The Gaelic festival became associated with the Christian All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, and has hugely influenced the secular customs now connected with Halloween.
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