Halloween is less than two weeks away. Since I play Celtic music, I thought I'd share a wee bit about my love of both of those items, especially since I have a big Celtic Halloween concert that you can watch tonight on YouTube at 7:30PM CST.

Before I get started, I should point out that the idea of Samhain is new to me. Samhain is the Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It's one of the big festivals that were celebrated in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. Apparently, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany have their own version of this holiday.

Halloween, celebrated on October 31, is largely considered a Christianized version of the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. It's contemporary name stems from All Hallow's Eve which leads into All Saints Day on November 1st. It's contemporary name dates back to about 1745, according to Wikipedia, with All Hallow's Eve dating back as far as 1556.

For me, Halloween is mostly about trick-or-treating, costumes, and pumpkin carving. Halloween makes me think of contemporary ghosts, witches, vampires, death, zombies, and all sorts of scary stuff. Perhaps that's not an accurate representation. But it's what I know.

I loved it as a kid, but it wasn't until my daughter was born that I really got excited about it. I take Kenzie trick-or-treating every year. We both dress up. This year, Kenzie will be Cinderella and I'm gonna dig into my Renaissance festival costuming to be handsome prince.

It's thus appropriate in my mind to do a Celtic Halloween show, because not only do I play Celtic music, but I also a ton of songs on many of those topics. In fact, I have a whole album of Happy Songs of Death, which just seems totally appropriate to me.

I haven't blogged much about Celtic Halloween or Samhain over the years. But I ran through my websites and found these resources and podcasts for you to enjoy:

• Celtic Halloween / Samhain music on the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast
• I released an episode of The Celtic Geek – Celtic Halloween, House Concerts, Celtic Music Spotlight Changes
• Halloween music on the Renaissance Festival Podcast
• Killer Celtic Halloween

Oh! And once again, don't miss my Celtic Halloween show on YouTube. It will be saved for all time and the link posted here if you do miss it though.