The Celtic festival of Samhain celebrates a time of year when the division between Earth and the otherworld collapses, allowing spirits to pass through. Matt Cardy/Getty Images
The Irish often get credit – or blame – for the bonfires, pranksters, witches, jack-o’-lanterns and beggars who wander from house to house, threatening tricks and soliciting treats.
The first professional 19th-century folklorists were the ones who created a through line from Samhain to Halloween. Oxford University’s John Rhys and James Frazer of the University of Cambridge were keen to find the origins of their national cultures.
They observed lingering customs in rural areas of Britain and Ireland and searched medieval texts for evidence that these practices and beliefs had ancient pagan roots. They mixed stories of magic and paganism with harvest festivals and whispers of human sacrifice, and you can still find echoes of their outdated theories on websites.
But the Halloween we celebrate today has more to do with the English, a ninth-century pope and America’s obsession with consumerism.
A changing of the seasons
For two millennia, Samhain, the night of Oct. 31, has marked the turn from summer to winter on the Irish calendar. It was one of four seasonal signposts in agricultural and pastoral societies.
After Samhain, people brought the animals inside as refuge from the long, cold nights of winter. Imbolc, which is on Feb. 1, marked the beginning of the lambing season, followed by spring planting. Beltaine signaled the start of mating season for humans and beasts alike on May 1, and Lughnasadh kicked off the harvest on Aug. 1.
But whatever the ancient Irish did on Oct. 31 is lost to scholars because there’s almost no evidence of their pagan traditions except legends written by churchmen around 800 A.D., about 400 years after the Irish started turning Christian. Although they wrote about the adventures of their ancestors, churchmen could only imagine the pagan ways that had disappeared.A neopagan celebration of Samhain in October 2021. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
An otherworld more utopian than terrifying
These stories about the pagan past told of Irish kings holding annual weeklong feasts, markets and games at Samhain. The day ended early in northwestern Europe, before 5 p.m., and winter nights were long. After sundown, people went inside to eat, drink and listen to storytellers.
The stories did not link Samhain with death and horror. But they did treat Samhain as a night of magic, when the otherworld – what, in Irish, was known as the “sí” – opened its portals to mortals. One tale, “The Adventure of Nera,” warned that if you went out on Samhain Eve, you might meet dead men or warriors from the sí, or you might unknowingly wander into the otherworld.
When Nera went out on a dare, he met a thirsty corpse in search of drink and unwittingly followed warriors through a portal into the otherworld. But instead of ghosts and terror, Nera found love. He ended up marrying a “ban sídh” – pronounced “BAN-shee” – an otherworldly woman. But here’s the medieval twist to the tale: He lived happily ever after in this otherworld with his family and farm.
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The Irish otherworld was no hell, either. In medieval tales, it is a sunny place in perpetual spring. Everyone who lives there is beautiful, powerful, immortal and blond. They have good teeth. The rivers flow with mead and wine, and food appears on command. No sexual act is a sin. The houses sparkle with gems and precious metals. Even the horses are perfect.
Clampdown on pagan customs
The link between Oct. 31, ghosts and devils was really the pope’s fault.
In 834, Pope Gregory IV decreed Nov. 1 the day for celebrating all Christian saints. In English, the feast day became All Hallows Day. The night before – Oct. 31 – became known as All Hallows Eve.
Some modern interpretations insist that Pope Gregory created All Hallows Day to quell pagan celebrations of Samhain. But Gregory knew nothing of ancient Irish seasonal holidays. In reality, he probably did it because everyone celebrated All Saints on different days and, like other Popes, Gregory sought to consolidate and control the liturgical calendar.
In the later Middle Ages, All Hallows Eve emerged as a popular celebration of the saints. People went to church and prayed to the saints for favors and blessings. Afterward, they went home to feast. Then, on Nov. 2, they celebrated All Souls’ Day by praying for the souls of their lost loved ones, hoping that prayers would help their dead relatives out of purgatory and into heaven.
But in the 16th century, the Protestant rulers of Britain and Ireland quashed saints’ feast days, because praying to saints seemed idolatrous. Protestant ministers did their best to eliminate popular customs of the early November holidays, such as candle-lit processions and harvest bonfires.
In the minds of ministers, these customs smacked of heathenism.
A mishmash of traditions
Our Halloween of costumed beggars and leering jack-o’-lanterns descends from this mess of traditions, storytelling and antiquarianism.
Jack-o’-lanterns are neither ancient nor Irish. One of the earliest references is an 18th-century account of an eponymous Jack, who tricked the devil one too many times and was condemned to wander the world forever.
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Supposedly, Jack, or whatever the hero was called, carved a turnip and stuck a candle in it as his lantern. But the custom of carving turnips in early November probably originated in England with celebrations of All Saints’ Day and another holiday, Guy Fawkes Day on Nov. 5, with its bonfires and fireworks, and it spread from there.Guy Fawkes Day, an annual celebration in Great Britain, features fireworks and bonfires and is observed on Nov. 5. Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images
As for ancient bonfires, the Irish and Britons built them to celebrate Beltaine, but not Samhain – at least, not according to the medieval tales.
In 19th-century Ireland, All Hallows Eve was a time for communal suppers, games like bobbing for apples and celebrating the magic of courtship. For instance, girls tried to peel apples in one long peel; then they examined the peels to see what letters they resembled – the initials of their future husbands’ names. Boys crept out of the gathering, despite warnings, to make mischief, taking off farm gates or stealing cabbages and hurling them at the neighbors’ doors.
Halloween with an American sheen
Across the Atlantic, these customs first appeared in the mid-19th century, when the Irish, English and many other immigrant groups brought their holidays to the U.S.
In medieval Scotland, “guisers” were people who dressed in disguise and begged for “soul cakes” on All Souls Day. These guisers probably became the costumed children who threatened – and sometimes perpetrated – mischief unless given treats. Meanwhile, carved turnips became jack-o’-lanterns, since pumpkins were plentiful in North America – and easier to carve.
Like Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Easter, Halloween eventually became a feast of consumerism. Companies mass-produced costumes, paper decorations and packaged candy. People in Britain and Ireland blamed the Americans for the spread of modern Halloween and its customs. British schools even tried to quash the holiday in the 1990s because of its disorderly and demonic connotations.
The only real remnant of Samhain in Halloween is the date. Nowadays, no one expects to stumble into a romance in the sí. Only those drawn to the ancient Celtic past sense the numinous opening of the otherworld at Samhain.
But who’s to say which reality prevails when the portals swing open in the dark of Oct. 31?
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PG&E Donates $1 Million to Local Food Banks to Help Feed Families
PG&E donates $1 million to local food banks across Northern and Central California—equivalent to about 3 million meals—supporting 38 food banks serving 47 counties.
Just in time for the holidays, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced a $1 million donation to local food banks across Northern and Central California—support aimed at meeting a surge in demand as more families and seniors struggle to put food on the table. According to PG&E, the contribution is expected to provide the equivalent of roughly 3 million meals and will support 38 food banks serving 47 counties within PG&E’s service territory.
A third major food-bank contribution since September
The $1 million gift marks the third food-bank-focused contribution since September from PG&E or The PG&E Corporation Foundation (the PG&E Foundation). Combined, those efforts bring PG&E’s total community food support in 2025 to $2.37 million. PG&E emphasized that the funding for these charitable contributions comes from PG&E shareholders—not customers.
Food banks facing record-breaking demand
Food banks across California are reporting pressure levels not seen since the pandemic. Officials with the California Association of Food Banks say demand has reached record highs, driven in part by an unexpected surge during the federal government shutdown this fall. “California food banks experienced an unexpected surge with the [federal government] shutdown this fall. So, we reached out for help on their behalf and PG&E responded,” said Stacia Levenfeld, Chief Executive Officer of the California Association of Food Banks. “Their $1 million gift to food banks throughout Northern and Central California will have a meaningful impact on the lives of millions of people this holiday season and help food banks continue their critical work in our communities.” PG&E leaders framed the donation as an extension of a longstanding partnership with food bank networks. “We are grateful to help local food banks fulfill their mission during this time of increasing demand, especially as more families and seniors are struggling through the holiday season,” said Carla Peterman, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs, PG&E Corporation and Chair of The PG&E Corporation Foundation Board. “Our longstanding partnership with the California Association of Food Banks supports the safety net that is our local food banks.”
Where the 2025 food support has gone
PG&E outlined additional contributions made earlier in the year:
September: The PG&E Foundation awarded $1.12 million to support local food banks, tribal food banks, and senior meal programs.
November: The PG&E Foundation donated $250,000 to the California Association of Food Banks’ Emergency Response Fund.
Equity-focused grant distribution
The California Association of Food Banks notes that while California produces nearly half of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, more than one in five residents still don’t know where their next meal will come from. Food insecurity rates are even higher in many communities of color. PG&E said grant amounts awarded to local organizations will account for county poverty and unemployment levels, using a formula from the California Department of Social Services. The goal: promote equity by directing more support to counties with higher need.
About the PG&E Corporation Foundation and PG&E
The PG&E Corporation Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, separate from PG&E and sponsored by PG&E Corporation. PG&E is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. More information is available at pge.com and pge.com/news.
Why this matters
As food banks brace for sustained demand beyond the holiday season, large-scale donations like PG&E’s can help stabilize local supply—especially when distributed with an equity lens that targets the counties facing the steepest economic pressures. For families, seniors, and individuals navigating rising costs, the impact is immediate: more meals available now, and stronger community support systems heading into the new year. Community links:
In the 1970s, Lynwood, CA, dreamed of a downtown mall anchored by Montgomery Ward. Decades later, the empty lots told a story of ambition, delay, and renewal.
In the early 1970s, Lynwood, California, dreamed big.
City leaders envisioned a new, modern downtown — a sprawling shopping and auto mall that would bring jobs, shoppers, and a sense of pride back to this small but growing city in the southeast corner of Los Angeles County. At the heart of the plan stood a gleaming new Montgomery Ward department store, which opened around 1973 and promised to anchor a larger commercial center that never fully came.
But for those of us who grew up in Lynwood during that time, the promise never quite materialized.
Instead, we remember acres of empty lots, chain-link fences, and faded “Coming Soon” signs that sat for decades — silent witnesses to a dream deferred.
The Vision That Stalled
In 1973, Lynwood’s Redevelopment Agency launched what it called Project Area A — an ambitious plan to clear and rebuild much of the city’s downtown core. Small businesses and homes were bought out, land was assembled, and the city floated bonds to support new construction.
For a brief moment, it looked as if the plan might work. Montgomery Ward opened its doors, serving as a retail beacon for the area. Yet the rest of the mall — the shops, restaurants, and auto dealerships — never came.
By the mid-1970s, much of downtown had been bulldozed, but little replaced it. And by the time Ward closed its Lynwood location in 1986, the vast lots surrounding it had become symbols of frustration and unfulfilled potential.
What Happened?
Some longtime residents whispered about corruption or backroom deals — the kind of speculation that grows when visible progress stalls.
But newspaper archives and redevelopment records tell a more complex story.
Lynwood’s plans collided with a series of hard realities:
The construction of the Century Freeway (I-105) disrupted neighborhoods and depressed land values. Environmental cleanup and ownership disputes slowed development. Economic shifts in retail — as malls in nearby Downey, South Gate, and Paramount attracted anchor stores — drained the local market. And later, political infighting among city officials made sustained redevelopment almost impossible.
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To this day, there’s no public record of proven corruption directly tied to the 1970s mall plan. What did exist was a tangle of bureaucracy, economic change, and missed opportunity — a perfect storm that left Lynwood’s heart half-built and half-forgotten.
Growing Up Among the Vacant Lots
For those of us who were kids in Lynwood during that era, the story is more personal.
We remember the sight of the Montgomery Ward building — modern and hopeful at first, then shuttered and fading by the mid-1980s.
We remember riding bikes past the empty dirt fields that were supposed to become shopping plazas. And we remember the quiet frustration of adults who had believed the city’s promises.
Those empty blocks became our playgrounds — but they also became symbols of the gap between what Lynwood was and what it wanted to be.
A New Chapter: Plaza México and Beyond
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the dream finally resurfaced in a new form.
Developers transformed the long-idle site into Plaza México, a vibrant commercial and cultural hub that celebrates Mexican and Latin American heritage.
It took nearly 30 years for Lynwood’s downtown to come alive again.
The result is beautiful — but it’s also bittersweet for those who remember how long the land sat empty, and how many local businesses and residents were displaced in pursuit of a dream that took a generation to fulfill.
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Looking Back
The story of Lynwood’s lost mall isn’t just about urban planning.
It’s about hope, change, and resilience. It’s about how a community tried to reinvent itself — and how the children who grew up watching that effort still carry its memory.
Sometimes, when I drive through that stretch of Imperial Highway and Long Beach Boulevard, I still imagine what might have been: the bustling mall that never was, and the voices of a neighborhood caught between ambition and uncertainty.
📚 Further Reading
Montgomery Ward will close its Lynwood store. (Jan 3 1986) — Los Angeles Times.
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The dystopian Pottersville in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is starting to feel less like fiction
A fresh look at It’s a Wonderful Life through the film’s darkest detour—Pottersville—and why its greed, corruption, and desensitization to cruelty feels uncomfortably familiar in America today.
To many Americans, George Bailey’s dystopian nightmare is disquietingly familiar. Paramount
The dystopian Pottersville in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is starting to feel less like fiction
Nora Gilbert, University of North Texas Along with millions of others, I’ll soon be taking 2 hours and 10 minutes out of my busy holiday schedule to sit down and watch a movie I’ve seen countless times before: Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which tells the story of a man’s existential crisis one Christmas Eve in the fictional town of Bedford Falls. There are lots of reasons why this eight-decade-old film still resonates, from its nostalgic pleasures to its cultural critiques. But when I watch it this year, the sequence where Bedford Falls transforms into the dark and dystopian “Pottersville” will resonate the most. In the film, protagonist George Bailey, who’s played by Jimmy Stewart, is on the brink of suicide. He seems to have achieved the hallmarks of the American dream: He’s taken over his father’s loan business, married the love of his life and fathered four excessively adorable children. But George feels stifled and beaten down. His Uncle Billy has misplaced US$8,000 of the company’s money, and the town’s resident tyrant, Mr. Potter, is using the mishap to try to ruin George, who’s his last remaining business competitor. An angel named Clarence is tasked with pulling George back from the brink. To stop him from attempting suicide, Clarence decides to show George what life would have been like if he’d never been born. In this alternate reality, Bedford Falls is called Pottersville, a place Mr. Potter runs as a ruthless banker and slumlord.Pottersville, the dark, dystopian version of Bedford Falls, is a place characterized by vice and moral decay.Paramount Having previously written about “It’s a Wonderful Life” in my book on literary and film censorship, I can’t help but see parallels between Pottersville and the U.S. today. Think about it: In Pottersville, one man hoards all the financial profits and political power. In Pottersville, greed, corruption and cynicism reign supreme. In Pottersville, hard-working immigrants like Giuseppe Martini who were able to build a life and run a business in Bedford Falls have vanished. In Pottersville, homeless addicts like Mr. Gower and nonconformist “pixies” like Clarence are scorned and ostracized, then booted out of the local watering hole. In Pottersville, cops arrest people like Violet Bick while they’re at work and haul them away, kicking and screaming.Violet Bick gets dragged away by the Pottersville police as George looks on.Paramount But what horrifies George the most about Pottersville is how desensitized the people living in it seem to be to its harshness and cruelty – how they treat him like he’s the crazy, deranged one for wanting and expecting things to be different and better. This is what the current political moment feels like to me. There are days when the latest headlines feel so jarringly unprecedented that I find myself thinking, “Can this be happening? Can this be real?” If you think these comparisons are a bit of a stretch, consider when “It’s a Wonderful Life” was made, and the frame of mind Capra was in when he made it.
Frank Capra, anti-fascist
In 1946, Capra was just returning to Hollywood filmmaking after serving for four years in the U.S. Army, where the Office of War Information had tasked him with producing a series of documentary films about World War II and the lead-up to it. Even though Capra hadn’t been on the front lines, he’d been immersed in the sounds and images of war for years on end, and he had become acutely familiar with Germany, Italy and Japan’s respective rises to fascism.Frank Capra served in the U.S. Army during World War II.Keystone/Hulton Archive via Getty Images When deciding on his first postwar film, Capra recalled in his autobiography that he specifically “knew one thing – it would not be about war.” Instead, he chose to adapt a short story by Philip Van Doren Stern, “The Greatest Gift,” that Stern had originally sent to friends and family as a Christmas card in 1943. Stern’s story is certainly not about war. But it’s not exactly about Christmas, either. As Stern writes in his opening lines:
“The little town straggling up the hill was bright with colored Christmas lights. But George Pratt did not see them. He was leaning over the railing of the iron bridge, staring down moodily at the black water.”
The protagonist contemplates suicide because he’s “sick of everything” in the small-town “mudhole” he’s stuck in – until, that is, a “strange little man” gives him the chance to see what life would be like if he’d never been born. It was Capra and his team of screenwriters who added the sinister Henry F. Potter to Stern’s short, simple tale. The Potter subplot encapsulates the film’s most trenchant, still-resonant themes: the unfairness of socioeconomic injustices; the pervasiveness of corporate and political corruption; the threat of monopolized power; the need for affordable housing. These themes had, of course, run through many of Capra’s prewar films as well: “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “You Can’t Take It with You,” “Meet John Doe” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” the last of which also starred Jimmy Stewart. But they take on a different kind of weight in “It’s a Wonderful Life” – a weight that’s especially visible on the weathered face of Stewart, who himself had just returned from a harrowing four-year tour of duty as a bomber pilot in Europe. The idealistic vigor with which Stewart had fought crooked politicians and oligarchs as Mr. Smith is replaced by the bitterness, exhaustion, frustration and desperation with which he battles against Mr. Potter as George Bailey.George Bailey feels helpless in the face of corruption and cruelty.Paramount
Life after Pottersville
By the time George has begged and pleaded his way out of Pottersville, the lost $8,000 is no longer top of mind. He’s mainly just relieved to find Bedford Falls as he had left it, warts and all. And yet, the Bedford Falls that George returns to isn’t quite the same as the one he left behind. In this Bedford Falls, the community rallies together to figure out a way to recoup George’s missing money. Their pre-digital version of a GoFundMe page saves George from what he’d feared most: bankruptcy, scandal and prison. And even though his wife, Mary, tries to attribute this sudden wave of collectivist, activist energy to some sort of divine intervention – “George, it’s a miracle; it’s a miracle!” – Uncle Billy points out that it really came about through more earthly organizing means: “Mary did it, George; Mary did it! She told some people you were in trouble, and they scattered all over town collecting money!”The residents of Bedford Falls come together to save George from financial ruin.Paramount But the question of whether George actually wins his battle against Potter is a murky one. While the typical Capra protagonist triumphs by defeating vice and exposing subterfuge, George never even realizes that Potter is the one who got hold of his money and tried to ruin his life. Potter is never held accountable for his crimes. On the other hand, George is able to learn, from his time in Pottersville, what a crucial role he plays in his community. George’s victory over Potter, then, lies not in some grand final act of retribution, but in the incremental ways he has stood up to Potter throughout his life: not capitulating to Potter’s bullying or intimidation tactics; speaking truth to power; and running a community-centered business rather than one guided by greed and exploitation. In recent months, there have been similar acts of protest, large and small, in the form of rallies, boycotts, immigrant aid efforts, subscription cancellations, food bank donations and more. That doesn’t mean the U.S. has made it out of Pottersville, however. Each day, more head-spinning headlines appear, whether they’re about masked agents terrorizing immigrant communities, the dismantling of anti-corruption oversights, the consolidation of executive power or the naked display of political grift. Zuzu’s petals are still missing. Clarence still hasn’t gotten his wings. But this holiday season, I’m hoping it will feel helpfully cathartic to go with George Bailey, for the umpteenth time, through the dark abyss of his dystopian nightmare – and come out with him, stronger and wiser, on the other side. Nora Gilbert, Professor of Literary and Film Studies, University of North Texas This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
