[yevgenie]

This article is quite factual in its history of Halloween and in its conclusion that the holiday is a pagan religious festival. Of course, by the same logic, both Easter and Christmas should be deleted from the Christian calendar since those are also based on pagan religious festivals.

I agree with Christmas, but not Easter. I find it telling that my church (denomination), technically older than the Catholic church, has celebrated Easter for centuries but Christmas only in the last couple generations (after influence from the West).

[WackyKat]

That is interesting.I presume you belong to a church of the Orthodox family.

I had in mind the English speaking tradition.

"Easter" is derived from "Aester" the Anglo- Saxon goddess of spring and fertility.

Her totem animal was the hare and one of her symbols was the egg. Pretty clear.

Even more interesting is the true identity of Santa Claus.

His characteristics:

Is a large, old man with a grizzled beard

Lives in the far, snowy North

Flies by means of magical animals

Has magical means of spying of the activities of people

His helpers are elves

Visits people secretly

Can cloak himself with invisibility

Sometimes bestows gifts if the person has been good and requests them

So who is Santa Claus? He is Wotan-Woden-Odin. Santa's and Wotan's characteristics match very closely

Of course Wotan was a rather darker figure than Santa, but he has been sanitized for the kiddies.