Leaves are turning colors and falling in streams of fiery red, sunset orange and gold. The winds are starting to blow a little colder. Long shadows cast by the setting sun appear sooner than they have during the summer months. October is here. Halloween is coming. Since I was old enough to know what was going on around me, Halloween, also known as All Hallows Eve, has been a big deal for my family. To most kids growing up, Halloween is about trick-or-treating, jack-o’-lanterns, costumes and candy. In my family, the meanings behind those traditions have always been a part of Halloween. Not many people know the true meaning of Halloween anymore. Halloween started as a Samhain, a time when the veil between our world and the spirit world is at its thinnest. A day when the door is open for spirits to roam the earth. The traditions of Halloween started from this Pagan belief. I still remember the day I carved my first jack-o’-lantern. The kitchen floor was covered in pumpkin seeds on top of newspaper from my newly disemboweled pumpkin. Pumpkin meat separated from the seeds was piled in a plastic bowl, just waiting to be made into pumpkin bars. My mother sat next to me on the floor, telling me about Jack-O’-Lanterns. People first started making Jack-O’-Lanterns hundreds of years ago, to ward off evil spirits. That’s why traditional Jack-O’-Lanterns are made with wicked grins and large eyes; the goal is to make them as scary as possible so they frighten evil spirits. Every year we carve Jack-O’-Lanterns for that reason. The candles inside them light up the darkness and let no spirits meaning ill will or harm come in. As long as the candle burns, your house is protected. So perhaps this Halloween, think about it before you smash someone else’s Jack-O’-Lanterns. Everyone in my family — my uncle, my parents, my grandmother, and my siblings — dresses up for Halloween every year. Most people in my family spend months thinking of and planning what they want to be for Halloween. My grandmother sometimes makes the costumes for us when she can. I cannot recall a time when my mother didn’t dress as a witch. The real meaning behind costumes is so you can go along for the ride with the spirits. If you blend in, you go unnoticed by things that mean you harm. Of course, we still go trick-or-treating. My mother has never missed a year of trick-or-treating in her life. When we get home, my younger siblings will dump out their candy bags and trade candy until they have only the things they want. By the time they finish that, it’s time for them to sleep, visions of Halloween fun still dancing in their heads. Halloween is like New Year’s. It’s the end of the harvest season and the inauguration of winter. A time to look back on the things you’ve done and reap the seeds you have sown. A time for paying respect to loved ones who have passed over and honor the great circle of life: birth, death and rebirth. That’s what Halloween is to me.