Halloween is the time of “ghoulies and ghaisties, of long-leggitty baisties and things that go bump in the night”, “when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world”. But the most frightening thing this year could be getting COVID-19.
Here are some tips from the ACT Government on how to keep healthy, and make Halloween a treat, not a trick.
If you plan to trick or treat:
o Keep it local. Stay in your suburb, rather than going to well-known “treat streets” that attract big crowds.
o Stay in small household groups (for example, a supervising adult with children from the same household), rather than groups of young people together.
o Maintain physical distancing. Stay 1.5 metres away from people you don’t live with.
o Only accept individually wrapped sweets or treat bags.
o Avoid sharing your treats with others from different households.
o Carry hand sanitiser with you and use it often, especially after touching common surfaces.
o If a particular house looks busy, move onto the next house, or come back later.
If you plan to hand out treats:
o Keep the handling of treats to a minimum, and use individually wrapped sweets or treat bags.
o Consider other ways of distributing treats away from your front door, such as hanging them individually on your fence, front gate, letterbox, or front of your driveway. You could even grab a small table for the driveway or front yard, and place the treat bowl on top with signage directing people where to grab the goodies.
o Offer hand sanitiser at your front gate or fence.
Please Remember
o If you have any symptoms over Halloween, stay home, don’t receive visitors, and get tested immediately.
o If you are isolating or quarantining, don’t answer the door to trick-or-treaters.
o While facemasks are no longer mandatory for outdoors, you can still choose to wear one.
Australians might think Halloween is a new-fangled American invention, but the festival goes back some 2,000 years – and it’s been celebrated in Australia longer than one might think.
The Celts (and Wiccans and neopagans today) celebrated 31 October as Samhain (pronounced Sow-in), the New Year, the end of harvest, and the beginning of winter. It was a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead were thin, and the spirits of the ancestors could visit. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III made 1 November All Saints (or All Hallows) Day, and some Christians today celebrate its Eve as a holy day.
Modern Halloween, in the secular, wholly ghostly (rather than Holy Ghostly) sense, began in the 19th century, when Irish and Scottish immigrants brought their customs to the US. Miners brought Halloween to Australia during the Gold Rush; it was first celebrated in 1858, in Castlemaine.
Modern Halloween, though, owes much to the American example. It has been celebrated here from at least the early 1990s – 30 years ago now.
And for five ways to celebrate Halloween in Canberra this year, read our other article.
