Snickers, Samhain, and your Halloween stories

A Snickers bar split into two pieces with caramel.

Is free stuff ever free?

A few years ago, Snickers announced it would give away one million fun-size bars in time for Halloween via OneMillionSnickers.com. Part of the stunt included a Change.org petition from 2018 requesting the government move the date of Halloween. The play was adding a second Halloween—a full trick-or-treat day for "self-expression." All of this seemed weird to me because of Samhain (I'll explain), yet companies often separate marketing narratives from the nuances of history. Story and history are not the same thing. So let me share a snippet from my history and tell you all about Snickers, Samhain, and your holiday stories.

Let’s go back a few decades…

It was the 90s, Toni Braxton and Trainspotting were hella dope, and it was time for me to register for winter classes. My roommate insisted I sign up for a class taught by "the world's greatest professor ever" with two caveats including (1) who cares that Celtic history isn't your thing and (2) don't be distracted by her mullet. So I registered—over the phone at 6:00 a.m. like a proper Gen Xer—and showed up to class, and she was that good.

She told us all sorts of stories about the hero/giant Cuhulian and battles of naked warriors covered in blue pigment, barreling across battlefields shrieking their lineage, and of course, Samhain. I never saw Halloween the same way again. Or mullets. Turns out they, too, can be hella dope.

The first Halloween was everything

Samhain was one of four major Celtic seasonal festivals around 2,000 years ago. The event took place between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice from sundown October 31 through November 1 (by today’s Gregorian calendar). Samhain (likely pronounced SAH-wen) meant “summer’s end" in Gaelic.

Samhain was the night the veil between the worlds of the living and dead was thin enough to traverse. Revelers held feasts, stoked bon(e)fires, and donned freaky costumes. There were animal sacrifices to placate monsters from beyond, fairies, and some light soul-snatching. Oh, and turnips carved into jack-o-lanterns. Very Weekend at Bernie's but with more beards and fewer blazers over t-shirts.

The Church aimed to gain a foothold among pagans, so it needed to address Samhain.

In the 5th century, Pope Boniface rescheduled Samhain to May 13 and reframed it as a celebration of martyrs and saints. But Samhain stuck around because it was so rad. And that was the loop. Throughout history, the Church campaigned to stop/absorb/reframe Samhain and the closest they got was tacking on All Saints/All Souls Day instead.

Halloween today is a loud echo of the original

The American Halloween of today still has a lot in common with Samhain. Witches hats off to it for standing strong after myriad attempts to break its back.

So...it makes perfect sense that a candy company (slow-motion-eye-roll) would try to deal it a death blow with a petition to the government. Never mind that Halloween isn't a government holiday. Sigh.

Narratives can be distractions

Snickers' angle was that turning Halloween into a daytime holiday makes kids safer. It's the age-old move to use a story to control people's emotions. Oh no, are the kids exposed to something? Cancel e'rything. Let's temporarily overlook the kid cavity factory that is trick-or-treating AND that once you're an adult in the U.S., you can piously observe Halloween on a Saturday anyway.

Marketing and history collide a lot

The modern-narrative-versus-historical-origins thing has been a big issue for ages. It goes together like cookies and razor blades. It was the tool of organized religion and now it belongs to marketing.

Marketing is not the enemy

Marketing is neutral. It’s not good or evil. It’s just that religion and marketing both want your allegiance and your wallet. One claims to make your life better tomorrow (or after you’re dead for eternity) and one claims to make it better right now. Same maneuvers though.

Yet which Halloween narrative is more intriguing? The one about candy (that you can buy year-round but forget that for now) and sexy Ghostbusters OR the one about communing with another dimension? Snickers hopes you're invested in the first one and ignorant of the second. But the truth is, the narratives can coexist.

Fact can be better than fiction

All these characters, all those narratives, all the cultural appropriation. Don't get me wrong. I love Snickers and stash a bar at my desk for emergencies (or whatever the Gaelic word is for “every afternoon at 3 p.m.“ Our family celebrates Halloween for a solid week. So what's the connection I'm making for you between Snickers, Samhain, and your holiday stories?

Each holiday has a backstory worth knowing

My ask is that as you celebrate this season, please explore each holiday's origins. That exposure will lend you some immunity to the marketing mania and you might enjoy the season even more as you incorporate the real backstories. It can be quite a conversation starter, isn't that right, Saint Valentine?