COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:

It’s back. Happens every year about this time. Is there a holiday more fun, more meaningless and more goofy than Halloween?

There is not, with the possible exception of Groundhog Day, which I also love. But we’re not here to talk about Groundhog Day. We’re here to talk about Halloween, All Souls Day, El Dia de Los Muertos, your choice.

We’ve already covered the history of Halloween for you. It all started with the Celts, ancient people who lived in what is now Great Britain and Ireland from about 500 B.C. on.

A Celtic festival in late October called Samhain was a cross between a religious ritual and an end-of-summer rager, with a lot of the same stuff we associate with Halloween today — black cats, jack-o’-lanterns, spooky costumes.

This year, I thought we would take the Halloween World Tour 2008 and see what the peeps who live far away are up to on Oct. 31. Grab an overnight bag, your passport, a few magazines, and we’re off.

In Austria, which is where Arnold is from, people leave bread, water and a lighted lamp on the table before calling it quits on Halloween night.

That turns out to be a recurring theme around the world — leaving out food or candles or whatever to smooth the way for spirits who come back to say “Hi” on Halloween night. Apparently, spirits are always starving and can’t see anything in the dark.

The Chinese equivalent of Halloween is “Teng Chieh,” and again, people place food and water in front of photographs of family members who now reside elsewhere and we’re not talking about as in the next town.

The Chinese also light bonfires and set out lanterns so that the spirits who return on Halloween night don’t trip on stuff and hurt themselves.

In Czechoslovakia, people set up chairs in the living room on Halloween night — one for each living family member and one for each not-living family member. That’s a lot of chairs in a big family. Maybe they could borrow some lanterns from the Chinese so the people and the spirits aren’t tripping over chairs all night.

In Germany, people put away their knives on Halloween night, which is totally lost on me. If it’s not Halloween, do they leave their knives sitting out? If 87-year-old Aunt Hildegard, who was a total sweetheart, does come back, all of a sudden you have to hide the knives? I don’t get it.

In Mexico and Central America, “El Dia de los Muertos” is a happy holiday despite the scary name. It’s a three-day celebration that starts on Halloween night and ends on All Souls Day, Nov. 2.

People build altars in their home and put out candles, flowers, candy and food — all to honor their deceased relatives.

A nice Mexican touch is that October is when giant Monarch butterflies return to Mexico by the millions. The Aztecs believed that the each butterfly was carrying the spirit of one of their ancestors on its wings.

The British don’t celebrate Halloween per se, but their equivalent is “Guy Fawkes Night” or “Bonfire Night,” which is Nov. 5.

Guy Fawkes led a group of Catholic conspirators who tried, unsuccessfully, to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill King James I in 1605, all of which was totally illegal at the time.

The plot was discovered, Guy Fawkes and his buds were executed, and that’s what Bonfire Night is all about.

On Nov. 5, bonfires crackle all over the U.K., New Zealand and Canada, often with a burning effigy of Guy Fawkes or, in some cases, a present-day politician, which is rude.

But as always, whether it’s Halloween or your pillow, there’s no place like home. When it comes to ghosts and goblins — not that anyone knows the difference — nobody does Halloween like we do.

I’ll leave you with a few lines from Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” It’s my all-time favorite Halloween tale, and I miss no opportunity to dust it off, especially a few days before Halloween.

Late on a brisk autumn night, on his way home from a party in Tarrytown at the home of the charming and white hot Katrina Van Tassel, the terminally dorky Ichabod Crane makes the stunningly bad decision to try a shortcut through the graveyard of the Old Dutch Church, which is where the Headless Horsemen of Sleepy Hollow hangs his hat, so to speak, which is why it’s a really good place not to be, ever.

The Horseman is reputed to be the spirit of a tall, dark and totally handsome Hessian officer who lost his head to a cannonball, which hurts like the Dickens.

On the darkest nights of the year, the Headless Horseman bursts forth from the Old Dutch Church graveyard on a huge black stallion in search of his head.

Frankly, if you’re going to charge around at night looking for your head, I would think you’d do it when there’s a full moon, which are the best nights in my opinion, but it’s Irving’s story so we’ll just go with it.

By the way, all the places you read about in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” are still there, in Tarrytown, New York and look much the same as they did two centuries ago, when Ichabod Crane was being his dorky self and trying not to end up in three pieces if the Horseman caught up with him. Pay attention. This is spooky.

“In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, Ichabod Crane beheld something huge, misshapen and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions, mounted on a black horse of powerful frame, lacking nothing…but his head.”

And that should do it. Teng Chieh, El Dia de Los Muertos, and do not under any circumstances let Aunt Hildegard near the knives. She can be deadly. Boo. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at ptrb4@aol.com.