The weeks before Halloween are full of anticipation. Candy begins to flood the shelves, Halloween costume stores mysteriously appear, and horror movies are released.

I remember many years ago, when Halloween excitement was at its peak, I was trick-or-treating in my Cinderella costume. I knocked on the door of a house.

The woman who answered the door said that she didn’t celebrate pagan holidays, and I left the house with disappointment and no candy. Is Halloween really a pagan celebration of the devil’s birthday, as this woman claimed?

Halloween dates back to as far as All Saints Day, a church holiday to remember martyrs, and All Souls’ Day, initiated by the Pope to remember all the souls of people who have died.

Some people say Halloween is based on the the Celtic holiday Samhain, where the time straddling fall and winter was celebrated, but there are few connections from Samhain to modern-day Halloween. Most Halloween pastimes actually have Christian roots, including trick-or-treating, in which people originally went door to door to collect bread for the poor and prayers for the dead.

Of course, there will be those people who turn good, clean, bobbing-for-apples, boo-I-gotcha fun into a chance to attempt summoning evil or to celebrate sex, but that does not mean Halloween is based on those practices.

If you don’t celebrate Halloween for whatever reason, I respect that. Me, I’ll be wearing my werewolf costume and having fun this fall, celebrating what I believe is a night full of spooks with a non-evil origin.