Local Harvest

Do you have plans for Halloween?  Are you going to dress up?  Are you looking forward to some wonderful treats and snacks? Do you have your mask yet?  Maybe your plans would be different if you knew some basic Halloween facts.

Halloween probably started about 2,000 years ago with Celtic Druids celebrating “Samhain” or the changing of the seasons.  Summer was officially over, it was getting colder, and they needed to steel themselves for a long winter.  Ghosts would come out somewhere around the end of October with the end of the harvests.  The Druids would dress in costumes and burn dead crops in an effort to communicate with these spirits and receive messages and prophecies about the coming year.

The Roman Empire crowded the Celtic tribes for a couple of centuries and brought with them the festivals of Feralia and Pomona.  Feralia was a festival commemorating the passing of the dead.  Pomona was a goddess of fruit and trees.  Her symbol was an apple.  Bob for apples, anyone?

Pope Boniface IV created a day to honor all Christian martyrs around 610 A.D. and Pope Gregory III added saints around 740, making it an “All Saint’s Day.”  In old English this was “Alholowmesse” or “All Hallows Day” and the night before was “All Hallows Eve.”

How far we’ve come.

This year we should see around 40 million trick-or-treaters.  Americans will eat almost 25 pounds of candy this year, with most of it going down in the first week of November.  The lovely pumpkin, which is an almost entirely edible fruit, loaded with potassium and Vitamin A, is a cash crop in the United States, with over a BILLION pounds grown each year.

Why is all of this important for Keep Virginia Beautiful?  Consumption.  Remember our mission and our objectives?  Reduce, reuse, recycle?  Litter prevention?  Waste reduction and education?  All important issues with Halloween.

Are you planning on a costume for your neighborhood foray?  Perhaps you should make your own.  Many of the capes, tights, and especially masks, sold commercially for Halloween are made with plastic.   Does your little superhero need a foam weapon?   Plastic.  Make a costume out of household goods.  If you’re not that creative you could consider trading with the folks next door or participate in a Costume Swap.

There is also a great deal of plastic wrapping your snacks.  We want your snacks to be safe and kid-friendly but at least make them eco-safe and Earth-friendly too!  How about organic snacks?  You can visit Local Harvest and find out what’s in season now for some great treat ideas.  Use some of that billion pounds of pumpkins to make some good, Virginia Pumpkin cookies!  Are your candies made with a bunch of chemicals and high-fructose corn syrup or natural cane sugar, real fruit juices, and Fair Trade chocolate?  The Fair Trade chocolate guys are pretty heavy into sustainability and organic growing.  There is a really cool program through Global Exchange that encourages “Reverse Trick-or-Treating.”  You can get a kit from them and as you go door-to-door you can hand out Fair Trade candies and information cards.  Makes it kind of a “Trick-or-Treat-or-Trade” evening, doesn’t it?

When we were kids the container of choice for our treats was a pillowcase.  Preferably a King-sized pillowcase.  We’ve hopefully gotten you to shop with a reusable bag and when you need to you ask for paper.  Go the same route for your little goblin and create a custom one!  Non-toxic paints are a must and there are also a lot of crayons and art supplies made with soy instead of chemicals and paraffin.

Use that same mentality with your moody lighting, too.  We used to but a bulb in our Jack-o-Lantern but switched to candles as we went Green.  The traditional candles that we used were paraffin-based and released toxic chemicals.  We switched to organic soy candles, which are from renewable crops, healthier for our lungs and environment, and last longer.  As we travel the neighborhood in search of booty the little one carries a battery-free flashlight.  Turn the crank and it glows!  And the little one gets a charge out of giving a charge:  “I can do it!!”

Halloween is still one of our favorite holidays.  It is fun and spooky and scary, and it gives us a great opportunity to meet the neighbors again (so much more fun than post-hurricane bonding).  As we go out this year we’re going to think about our Celtic ancestors and do it with a nod to harvest time and Mother Earth.  And Superman.  We’ll just make out own cape.