I’ve been seeing some chitter-chatter about how “maybe we shouldn’t celebrate Independence Day anymore because the US is a gay country run by Jews.” I am totally opposed to this thinking, and think anyone following through on this kind of threat is a complete fag.

Firstly, you’re celebrating the nation as it was, not as it is now. And it was once a great nation. I’m a bit allergic to this “greatest country on earth” business, because it sounds insane and I don’t really see any basis for it, but it is the country of my ancestors and they celebrated it and I will celebrate it for the same reasons they did. Well, sort of. When they were celebrating it, the nation actually was great, and now it really is just a completely Jewed up shithole filled with niggers, homos, and junkies. But we celebrate the great men who made this country great before the boomers burned it down.

And we can celebrate the great things that remain: our families, cheeseburgers, hotdogs… umm… I don’t think RimWorld is American, and John Wick is pretty much Russian… Legos are Danish… but I’m sure there are still some other good things about America. Hey – there are some great vape shops and some great American made juice. I think all the good mods are made in China, but America has great high quality juice. And with the cheeseburgers, we are talking about the cows too. We’ve got some great cows.

One of the things about my job is rich people want to take me to fancy places, and I’ve had $400 Japanese steaks, and I still prefer US Angus. On July 4th, I want it ground up and grilled and I want a toasty bun and AMERICAN melty cheese and pickles and onions and ketchup and FRENCH’S mustard (which I’m pretty sure is American, despite the name which perhaps implies something different).

Here’s the thing: not celebrating traditional national holidays because of political things is gay. I’m still out there celebrating James Earl Ray Day, despite the fact he failed to stop the nigger uprising.

I’m thinking about burning a US flag at the BBQ. Just because that big Israel guy on TV is trying to tell me I can’t.

It seems like what Thomas Jefferson would have done, you know?

You know:

Although this is the great nation of my birth, the nation I love, with a flag intended to symbolize the freedoms that men died for, the current tyranny is burning the freedoms the flag once represented, and so with a heavy heart, I will set flame to the symbol of freedom so that I might light a fire of freedom in the hearts of my countrymen. If the freedoms the flag stands for no longer stand, than the flag no longer means anything, so it is in effigy that we allow the wind to scatter the ashes of the memory of a once free people.

But I don’t have any flags that aren’t polyester, and I’m not trying to burn plastic.

This nightmerica situation has me just as down as anyone. Maybe more so. But long after America burns down, I’m going to celebrate Independence Day, in remembrance of greater men and better days. And because I like grilling. And everyone is very happy with my grilling. People are coming back for seconds. I hardly even get to eat one, but what I enjoy is making other people happy.

I live in Nigeria, where people don’t really know much about American history, so I tell people that George Washington killed the King of England in a Japanese sword fight because the King of England tried to ban burgers.

I think we can probably alter our stories in the future in this way. I don’t really see any reason not to. I mean it doesn’t have to be that silly, but it could be sort of silly like that. I don’t really think these stories about the foundations of America that we hear now are really that good, the whole democracy thing is pretty gay, and I also don’t think they’re really very good, so George Washington being a kind of John Wick figure on a mission to stop the British from banning burgers is something I think is a real option for future history books.

But seriously man, have fun.

Everything isn’t political.

I mean, sort of everything is political, but a holiday with your family isn’t, and burgers and fireworks are not.

I should have posted a few days ago and instructed on how to make real charcoal. Real niggas know that it’s a whole lot different than that shit you buy in the bag. But it’s a little late for that now. It’s the norm here in my neck of the woods, of course, ain’t nobody buying bagged charcoal, but I did learn how to make it, my own special brew, and it really makes a world of difference. You get that real wood charcoal and then you just smoke them bitches out. Smoke up them buns too.

(Hilarious, considering that since the end of the Transatlantic slave trade, charcoal is like, one of the only profitable exports from Nigeria.)

But buddy, you’ll do fine with the bagged charcoal. You made it this far in your life with that. But next year, we’ll do a “how to make real charcoal” class in June, and all your people will be like “bro, what the hell did you do, this is amazing!”

I’ve also got a 15% pork mix, which prevents that faggot Zorhan from showing up at your BBQ and doing his friendly smily schtick and wooing everyone with his Islamo-communism. I spice the meat up pretty good too. Not too much, because you’ve gotta hold the shape, but pig fat helps with that. I also grind all my meat. I mean the butcher does, I unfortunately don’t have a grinder. But when that shit has been sitting there ground up and in the cold for days… not ideal.

Here’s the biggest thing though: do not cheap out on the buns. Get the good buns. Cut them and then flash the inner (cut) part in some melted butter, then put them on the grill for just a wee bit. Just to brown them up, and get it a bit crispy on the inside.

I’ll try to post some pics of my burgers.

And hey – throw some dogs on there too. Same protocol with the bun, slice the hotdog down the middle, and when it opens up, it’s done. Have some chopped onions and some chopped pickles with the mustard. None of that weird stuff that comes in cans. And these are hotdogs, not sausages, so no sauerkraut, okay? Let’s not get weird. Tell people if they want weird shit, bring it themselves.

By the way, I have the lettuce there, but I never recommend lettuce on burgers. It’s not my thing, and I’m the grill master, and though I’m not completely outraged by lettuce, I don’t believe in it, and I only discourage people from using it because my burgers are designed to not have lettuce. And there is no mayonnaise available at all in my BBQ, and if someone asks for it, I punch them in the stomach (and yes, before you ask, that rule does apply to pregnant women).

But have fun, boys.

Think of the good things for a day.

This is not a celebration of modern America, it’s a celebration of American mythology, it’s a celebration of our homeland and the homeland of our fathers, and this land that belongs to us and them, not to any of the others.

And most importantly of all: if you get blackout drunk, DO NOT grab your sister-in-law’s tits. Cousin’s? Not as bad, but avoid that as well. This is the one day of the year I drink beer, and I’d advise you to do the same. I’m thinking of applying this rule to all holidays, because a few Christmases ago, Santa maybe had a bit too much Grey Goose and was maybe a bit meaner to the African children than Santa should be. Beer is poison, total liquid estrogen, but it does prevent things from getting out of hand.

I mean, I’m a pro. I haven’t been blackout drunk in like, over 15 years. I was at a party a few weeks ago and people kept telling me to do shots after I knew I was at my limit and I watched these people vomiting and passing out while I was sitting there shaking my damn head and could have passed any DUI test (other than the breathalyzer, which is unconstitutional and a Jewish conspiracy literally supported by Palantir and James Bowman). But you know, I am a lot more likely to get a bit more… socially inappropriate with celebratory levels of liquor, whereas with beer that is totally impossible, and I think that goes for everyone, even us big time pros.

Especially if you’re the cook, bro, you gotta keep your shit tight. You start flipping out shitty burgers and it will make grabbing your sister-in-law’s tits look like an innocent foible.

Yes, goyim, don’t make your daughters hug their family, let them become affection-deprived and search for physical touch elsewhere.

After all, only healthy girls wouldn’t want to hug their family.

Daily Mail:

Girl Scouts officials have shared a reminder to parents that they shouldn’t make their daughters show affection to relatives this holiday season.

The organization tweeted the reminder Monday morning with the caption: ‘Forced affection = Not O.K.’

The tweet also came with a link to an article published on their website, called: ‘Reminder: She Doesn’t Owe Anyone a Hug. Not even at the Holidays.’

Yes, goy, even after all you’ve done for her, your daughter doesn’t owe you a hug.

If kids say no, then it’s no, and if kids say yes, then it’s yes, because kids know instinctively what the correct course of action is at any given time and are definitely not easy to manipulate and in need of guidance.

It seems that parents need a proper lesson on consent. But worry not, because Girl Scouts are up for the task.

From the article on the Girl Scouts website:

Holidays and family get-togethers are a time for yummy food, sweet traditions, funny stories, and lots and lots of love. But they could, without you even realizing it, also be a time when your daughter gets the wrong idea about consent and physical affection.

Have you ever insisted, “Uncle just got here—go give him a big hug!” or “Auntie gave you that nice toy, go give her a kiss,” when you were worried your child might not offer affection on her own? If yes, you might want to reconsider the urge to do that in the future.

Think of it this way, telling your child that she owes someone a hug either just because she hasn’t seen this person in a while or because they gave her a gift can set the stage for her questioning whether she “owes” another person any type of physical affection when they’ve bought her dinner or done something else seemingly nice for her later in life.

…

Give your girl the space to decide when and how she wants to show affection. Of course, many children may naturally want to hug and kiss family members, friends, and neighbors, and that’s lovely—but if your daughter is reticent, consider letting her choose what to do. Of course, this doesn’t give her license to be rude! There are many other ways to show appreciation, thankfulness, and love that don’t require physical contact. Saying how much she’s missed someone or thank you with a smile, a high-five, or even an air kiss are all ways she can express herself, and it’s important that she knows she gets to choose which feels most comfortable to her.

That’s far from lovely. Children who want to hug and kiss family members have already been brainwashed by the patriarchy into internalizing the macho definition of consent and the idea of physical, sexual, and affective obligations.

After all, why would anyone want to hug people? It’s obvious that the only reason why someone wouldn’t want to hug family members is because they’re healthy kids who are aware of the true definition of consent, the one that is so obvious that it has no blurred lines.

There is no excuse for sexual violence. There are no blurred lines when it comes to consent. The definition is clear: https://t.co/T3kRPLybRD via @UN_Women #orangetheworld #GenerationEquality #16Days pic.twitter.com/JilvCEDuP3

— Girl Scouts (@girlscouts) November 26, 2019

Below is what Girl Scouts endorses as the definition of consent.

From the Medium post:

What does consent look and sound like?

Enthusiastic

Consent comes from a place of enthusiasm. Rather than looking for a “no,” make sure there’s an active “yes.”

If your partner agrees but seems worried or unsure, they are not consenting.

…

Informed

You can only consent to something if you have all the facts. For example, if a partner says they will use protection during sex, but they do not, that is not consensual sex.

Consent cannot be free and full if all parties involved are under-age. Therefore, child marriage is a non-consensual act.

…

Reversible

Consent can be revoked. You can change your mind at any time. And consent is important even among couples who have had sex before.

You better be giving women all the facts about you so they can make an informed decision and enthusiastically scream “YES! I CONSENT!”  as they sign your sexual interaction contract.

Do watch out for the tricky reversal of consent stuff though, because if they suddenly whisper “I remove my consent” and you don’t instantly teleport yourself two steps away from her personal space, you’d be committing RAPE.

There are no blurred lines here.

A typical Jew preparing to ruin Christmas for everyone.

Jews have reached such a level of dominance over society that they no longer worry about garishly displaying their filthy hand in our destruction for all to see.

One of their most devious schemes, over the past few decades, has been their campaign to destroy Christmas in America and the wider West.

They haven’t done this in one go, however. Before pushing for this newer politically correct imposition to greet people with “happy holidays” instead of “merry Christmas” and demanding that crosses and nativity scenes be replaced with pine trees and menorahs, the Jews worked hard to create a sanitized, religion-free version of Christmas.

Yes, we have these abominations in the streets of America these days.

The most powerful tool in accomplishing this task was composing non-religious, consumerist Christmas music.

Newsweek:

President Donald Trump is taking credit this season for saving Christmas (or not), but it was a handful of Jews who wrote some of the greatest Yuletide songs in American history.

Certainly everyone knows that “White Christmas” was written by Irving Berlin (also known as the Russian-born Israel Isidore Beilin), who also wrote “God Bless America.” Berlin’s 1942 dream of snow on Christmas morning defines the holiday for many Americans—and made a fortune for Bing Crosby—but it doesn’t even make the top five of greatest Christmas songs written by non-Christians.

Here’s our top six:

Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer by Johnny Marks

Marks, born John David Marks in Mount Vernon, N.Y., based his song on a short story written by his brother-in-law Robert May, who had gotten an assignment in 1939 by Montgomery Ward to write a “cheery” Christmas book for shoppers.

The song, which put the flying reindeer myth into the American consciousness, became a hit for Gene Autry in 1949.

Marks also wrote such classics as “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Silver and Gold” and “Run Rudolph Run.”

Not only did Jews popularize Christianity-free Christmas music, but they also published all sorts of subversive cartoons (such as Rudolf the red-nosed raindeer) which have influenced generations of our people.

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé

Long before he was The Velvet Fog, singer Torme was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants with the surname Torma. In 1945, he teamed up with longtime collaborator Wells, also Jewish, for this classic tune inspired, Torme once said in an interview, by a desire to think of cold thoughts during a particularly hot summer.

Yes… nothing more Christmas-ey than… chestnuts?

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne

One of the bounciest Christmas numbers, Cahn (born Samuel Cohen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to Galician Jews Abraham and Elka Cohen), also said he wrote the song during that 1945 heatwave, albeit in Hollywood, not Chicago. Styne, who wrote the music, was born Julius Kerwin Stein in England to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine.

Bla bla bla… The article goes on and on about all these Christmas songs written by Jews, pretending as though these things actually mean Jews are “saving Christmas” or whatever.

The only thing they’re doing is making Christmas “safe” for Jews by removing all Christianity from the holiday, making it instead about snow, pine trees, getting drunk and loading up your credit card to give people all sorts of useless crap.

The intent was purely hostile. This is obvious from the fact that Jews didn’t actually start celebrating this new sanitized consumerist version of Christmas, but made up their own stupid holiday instead. So they didn’t want to be included in Christmas celebrations, they just wanted to debase it so that the goyim would lose their most sacred holiday.

Can you imagine a White guy moving to India or wherever and then starting to compose new songs for their religious holidays, but instead of making them about Krisna or Vishnu, he’d make the songs about smoking weed and buying stuff on Amazon?

Completely insane.

The fact that they’d even consider doing this shows the deeply unhinged nature of the Jewish psyche.

A couple weeks ago, I posted a piece about parents fighting back against an SJW feminist principal in Connecticut who tried to shut down the annual Halloween parade because of “inclusiveness of religious feelings” or some such gibberish.

I was a bit disappointed to see a lot of commenters posting weird satanic panic material from the nineties and condemning Halloween as “evil.”

As today is Halloween, I feel it is appropriate to defend Halloween, which is a fine Western tradition of both pagan, Christian and secular origins, and give a bit of the history of the holiday.

I am going to quote lengthily from Wikipedia here. You can read it, skim it or skip directly to the bottom for my comments.

Halloween, or Hallowe’en (/ˌhæləˈwiːn, -oʊˈiːn, ˌhɑːl-/; a contraction of “All Hallows’ Evening”), also known as Allhalloween, All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve, is a yearly celebration observed in a number of countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. It begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers.

According to many scholars, All Hallows’ Eve is a Christianized feast influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, with possible pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain. Other scholars maintain that it originated independently of Samhain and has solely Christian roots.

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The word Halloween or Hallowe’en dates to about 1745 and is of Christian origin. The word “Halloween” means “hallowed evening” or “holy evening”. It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows’ Eve (the evening before All Hallows’ Day). In Scots, the word “eve” is even, and this is contracted to e’en or een. Over time, (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en evolved into Halloween. Although the phrase “All Hallows'” is found in Old English (ealra hālgena mæssedæg, all saints mass-day), “All Hallows’ Eve” is itself not seen until 1556.

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Today’s Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by folk customs and beliefs from the Celtic-speaking countries, some of which are believed to have pagan roots. Jack Santino, a folklorist, writes that “there was throughout Ireland an uneasy truce existing between customs and beliefs associated with Christianity and those associated with religions that were Irish before Christianity arrived”. Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while “some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain”, which comes from the Old Irish for “summer’s end”. Samhain (pronounced SAH-win or SOW-in) was the first and most important of the four quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar and was celebrated in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. It was held on or about 31 October – 1 November and a kindred festival was held at the same time of year by the Brittonic Celts; called Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Kalan Gwav in Cornwall and Kalan Goañv in Brittany. Samhain and Calan Gaeaf are mentioned in some of the earliest Irish and Welsh literature. The names have been used by historians to refer to Celtic Halloween customs up until the 19th century, and are still the Gaelic and Welsh names for Halloween.Samhain/Calan Gaeaf marked the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the ‘darker half’ of the year. Like Beltane/Calan Mai, it was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned. This meant the Aos Sí (pronounced ees shee), the ‘spirits’ or ‘fairies’, could more easily come into our world and were particularly active. Most scholars see the Aos Sí as “degraded versions of ancient gods […] whose power remained active in the people’s minds even after they had been officially replaced by later religious beliefs”. The Aos Sí were both respected and feared, with individuals often invoking the protection of God when approaching their dwellings. At Samhain, it was believed that the Aos Sí needed to be propitiated to ensure that the people and their livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink, or portions of the crops, were left outside for the Aos Sí. The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality. Places were set at the dinner table and by the fire to welcome them. The belief that the souls of the dead return home on one night of the year seems to have ancient origins and is found in many cultures throughout the world. In 19th century Ireland, “candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this the eating, drinking, and games would begin”. Throughout the Gaelic and Welsh regions, the household festivities included rituals and games intended to divine one’s future, especially regarding death and marriage. Nuts and apples were often used in these divination rituals. Special bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them. Their flames, smoke and ashes were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers, and were also used for divination. It is suggested that the fires were a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic – they mimicked the Sun, helping the “powers of growth” and holding back the decay and darkness of winter. Christian minister Eddie J. Smith suggests the bonfires were also used to scare witches of “their awaiting punishment in hell”.

From at least the 16th century, the festival included mumming and guising in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales. This involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food. It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf, similar to the custom of souling (see below). Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them. It is suggested that the mummers and guisers “personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune”. In parts of southern Ireland, the guisers included a hobby horse. A man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses—some of which had pagan overtones—in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the ‘Muck Olla’; not doing so would bring misfortune. In Scotland, youths went house-to-house with masked, painted or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed. F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient festival included people in costume representing the spirits, and that faces were marked (or blackened) with ashes taken from the sacred bonfire. In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod. In the late 19th and early 20th century, young people in Glamorgan and Orkney cross-dressed. Elsewhere in Europe, mumming and hobby horses were part of other yearly festivals. However, in the Celtic-speaking regions they were “particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers”. From at least the 18th century, “imitating malignant spirits” led to playing pranks in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. Wearing costumes and playing pranks at Halloween spread to England in the 20th century. The “traditional illumination for guisers or pranksters abroad on the night in some places was provided by turnips or mangel wurzels, hollowed out to act as lanterns and often carved with grotesque faces”. By those who made them, the lanterns were variously said to represent the spirits, or were used to ward off evil spirits. They were common in parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century, as well as in Somerset (see Punkie Night). In the 20th century they spread to other parts of England and became generally known as jack-o’-lanterns.

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Today’s Halloween customs are also thought to have been influenced by Christian dogma and practices derived from it. Halloween is the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows’ Day (also known as All Saints’ or Hallowmas) on 1 November and All Souls’ Day on 2 November, thus giving the holiday on 31 October the full name of All Hallows’ Eve (meaning the evening before All Hallows’ Day).[61] Since the time of the primitive Church, major feasts in the Christian Church (such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) had vigils which began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows’. These three days are collectively referred to as Allhallowtide and are a time for honoring the saints and praying for the recently departed souls who have yet to reach Heaven. All Saints was introduced in the year 609, but was originally celebrated on 13 May, the same date as Lemuria, an ancient Roman festival of the dead. In 835, it was officially switched to 1 November, the same date as Samhain, at the behest of Pope Gregory IV. Some suggest this was due to Celtic influence, while others suggest it was a Germanic idea, although it is claimed that both Germanic and Celtic-speaking peoples commemorated the dead at the beginning of winter. It may have been seen as the most fitting time to do so, as it was when the plants themselves were ‘dying’. It is also suggested that the change was made on the “practical grounds that Rome in summer could not accommodate the great number of pilgrims who flocked to it”, and perhaps because of public health considerations regarding Roman Fever – a disease that claimed a number of lives during the sultry summers of the region.

By the end of the 12th century they had become holy days of obligation across Europe and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for the souls in purgatory. In addition, “it was customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls.” “Souling”, the custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls, has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating. The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century and was found in parts of England, Flanders, Germany and Austria. Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Allhallowtide, collecting soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers’ friends and relatives. Soul cakes would also be offered for the souls themselves to eat, or the ‘soulers’ would act as their representatives.[74] Shakespeare mentions souling in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593). On the custom of wearing costumes, Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh wrote: “It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints’ Day, and All Hallows’ Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities”. In the Middle Ages, churches displayed the relics of martyred saints and those parishes that were too poor to have relics let parishioners dress up as the saints instead, a practice that some Christians continue at Halloween today. Lesley Bannatyne, an American author, believes that this was a Christianization of a previous pagan custom. It has been suggested that the carved jack-o’-lantern, a popular symbol of Halloween, originally represented the souls of the dead. On Halloween, in medieval Europe, “fires [were] lit to guide these souls on their way and deflect them from haunting honest Christian folk.” Households in Austria, England and Ireland often had “candles burning in every room to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes”. These were known as “soul lights”. Many Christians in mainland Europe, especially in France, believed “that once a year, on Hallowe’en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival” known as the danse macabre, which has often been depicted in church decoration. Christopher Allmand and Rosamond McKitterick write in The New Cambridge Medieval History that “Christians were moved by the sight of the Infant Jesus playing on his mother’s knee; their hearts were touched by the Pietà; and patron saints reassured them by their presence. But, all the while, the danse macabre urged them not to forget the end of all earthly things.” An article published by Christianity Today claimed that the danse macabre was enacted at village pageants and at court masques, with people “dressing up as corpses from various strata of society”, and suggested this was the origin of modern-day Halloween costume parties.

In parts of Britain, these customs came under attack during the Reformation as some Protestants berated purgatory as a “popish” doctrine incompatible with the notion of predestination. Thus, for some Nonconformist Protestants, the theology of All Hallows’ Eve was redefined; without the doctrine of purgatory, “the returning souls cannot be journeying from Purgatory on their way to Heaven, as Catholics frequently believe and assert. Instead, the so-called ghosts are thought to be in actuality evil spirits. As such they are threatening.” Other Protestants maintained belief in an intermediate state, known as Hades (Bosom of Abraham), and continued to observe the original customs, especially souling, candlelit processions and the ringing of church bells in memory of the dead. With regard to the evil spirits, on Halloween, “barns and homes were blessed to protect people and livestock from the effect of witches, who were believed to accompany the malignant spirits as they traveled the earth.” In the 19th century, in some rural parts of England, families gathered on hills on the night of All Hallows’ Eve. One held a bunch of burning straw on a pitchfork while the rest knelt around him in a circle, praying for the souls of relatives and friends until the flames went out. This was known as teen’lay, derived either from the Old English tendan (to kindle) or a word related to Old Irish tenlach (hearth). The rising popularity of Guy Fawkes Night (5 November) from 1605 onward, saw many Halloween traditions appropriated by that holiday instead, and Halloween’s popularity waned in Britain, with the noteworthy exception of Scotland. There and in Ireland, they had been celebrating Samhain and Halloween since at least the early Middle Ages, and the Scottish kirk took a more pragmatic approach to Halloween, seeing it as important to the life cycle and rites of passage of communities and thus ensuring its survival in the country.

In France, some Christian families, on the night of All Hallows’ Eve, prayed beside the graves of their loved ones, setting down dishes full of milk for them. On Halloween, in Italy, some families left a large meal out for ghosts of their passed relatives, before they departed for church services. In Spain, on this night, special pastries are baked, known as “bones of the holy” (Spanish: Huesos de Santo) and put them on the graves of the churchyard, a practice that continues to this day.

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Lesley Bannatyne and Cindy Ott both write that Anglican colonists in the American South and Catholic colonists in Maryland “recognized All Hallow’s Eve in their church calendars”, although the Puritans of New England maintained strong opposition to the holiday, along with other traditional celebrations of the established Church, including Christmas. North American almanacs of the late 18th and early 19th century give no indication that Halloween was widely celebrated there.[99] It was not until mass Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century that Halloween became a major holiday in America. Confined to the immigrant communities during the mid-19th century, it was gradually assimilated into mainstream society and by the first decade of the 20th century it was being celebrated coast to coast by people of all social, racial and religious backgrounds. “In Cajun areas, a nocturnal Mass was said in cemeteries on Halloween night. Candles that had been blessed were placed on graves, and families sometimes spent the entire night at the graveside”.

There you have it. The origins might be slightly pagan, but no more so than Christmas or most other Christian holidays. And there is nothing wrong with that. The pagan traditions of our ancestors being incorporated into Christianity is a positive, not a negative thing, and something we should be proud of, not attack or condemn.

The satanic panic of the 1980s and 90s was a goofy, silly thing, which was unscientific in nature, a way for television preachers to make money by getting grown adults to believe there were evil spirits in the closet.

Some of the folks complaining about Halloween were from Orthodox countries, saying they have their own traditions which they think are better. That’s fine, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with Britain or America celebrating Halloween.

And yes, in America, this Celtic religious tradition has been transformed into something which is largely secular, involving candy and costumes. However, there is nothing wrong with a celebration for kids to have fun.

Obviously, adults getting involved and dressing up in these costumes gets a bit weird, and I think that people can lodge valid criticism against this practice. But that is just a sign of the times, and doesn’t really have anything to do with the holiday itself, either as a religious festival or a fun time for kids.

Happy Halloween.