Interestingly, there are as many facebook entries on my feed about Samhain as Halloween. And I think having a holiday set aside for remembering the dead is at least, if not more, useful from a societal point of view as dressing up and getting candy. It's also interesting that in America, we consider "dressing up" as a chance to put on a costume of anything, whether it's silly, sexy or macabre. Whereas the origin of the holiday, even in its non-pagan Halloween form, still involved dressing up as scary things to convince the spirits of the dead to take a pass.

But somehow that's turned into sexy cats and Jersey Shore characters and video game people. Which is okay - I loves me some Halloween pirate, it's just interesting to see the holiday evolve, even within the course of just my lifetime.

But ... we don't have a "remember the dead" day. Why not? Almost all of us have someone we love and miss who is forever gone. Wouldn't it be great to have a day set aside to get together with friends and family, tell stories of the dearly departed, and remember? I'd like to have that day.

Mostly because there are so many gone...it's too hard to face alone. Is the fact. Which really isn't as fun as sexy parking-cop-lady, is it?