Mm--thanks, Anna. I put Samhain (which I, in my ignorance, pronounce exactly as it looks to me: sam {as in the name} hain {rhymes with pain}) into wow's link--appropriate, wasn't it!-- and found:
Samhain marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Beltane on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. For it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground. Whereas Beltane welcomes in the summer with joyous celebrations at dawn, the most magically potent time of this festival is November Eve, the night of October 31st, known today of course, as Halloween.

Samhain (Scots Gaelic: Samhuinn) literally means “summer's end.” In Scotland and Ireland, Halloween is known as Oíche Shamhna, while in Wales it is Nos Calan Gaeaf, the eve of the winter's calend, or first. ...Throughout the centuries, pagan and Christian beliefs intertwine in a gallimaufry of celebrations from Oct 31st through November 5th...
http://www.celticspirit.org/samhain.htm
I like the ourtrageousness of the word gallimaufry--it's just so in-your-face, I-don't-care-if-you-don't-know-my-meaning. Here's what Gurunet has for it:
gal·li·mau·fry (găl'ə-mô'frē)
n., pl. -fries.

A jumble; a hodgepodge.

[French galimafrée, from Old French galimafree, sauce, ragout : probably galer, to make merry; see gallant + mafrer, to gorge oneself (from Middle Dutch moffelen, to open one's mouth wideof imitative origin).]