This is the time of year when vampires, ghosts, and other spirits from the nether world start appearing in stores and on our front porches all in anticipation of Halloween. The roots of Halloween are in the pre-Christian Druid new year celebration. The Druid (or Gallic ) new year began November 1 which coincided with the end of the harvest which accounts for the food aspect of the holiday. The tradition was that the spirits of the dead would come out the night before (October 31) in anticipation of the new year.
      The twentieth century American version of Halloween is a kind of Dionysian festival in which a symbolic ( although some take it literally) loss of all inhibitions leads to an equally symbolic anything goes mentality which manifests itself in the form of costumes portraying anti-societal characters such as pirates, vampires, goblins, ghosts, etc.,etc.