Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat! How did Halloween become the candy-bingeing, costume-flaunting holiday it is today?

Halloween’s origins are tied to the Celtic people in France, Ireland and Britain, who celebrated an annual pagan harvest festival. Immigrants brought their own versions of Halloween to North America in the 19th century; now, it’s a staple of U.S. pop culture. If you have ever wondered why we do the things we do on Halloween, wonder no more.

Trick or treating

The U.S. Census estimated that 36.1 million people went trick-or-treating last year, and about 108 million houses gave out treats. This tradition started in the Middle Ages, when the poor would engage in “souling,” which entailed walking from door to door, reciting prayers for the dead and begging for food on All Souls Day (Nov. 2).

Trick-or-treating on Halloween is believed to have been created in America in the form of ritual begging for food. It gained popularity as a Halloween tradition in the 1930s and gained momentum in the 1950s. Adults originally viewed trick-or-treating on Halloween as extortion or a prank. Small acts of vandalism are common during trick-or-treating, although increased parental supervision and security systems curbed this somewhat. Traditional treats included pastries, apples and popcorn, but today children are disappointed if they receive anything other than candy — and we’re not talking Smarties.

Dressing up in costumes

Centuries ago, winter was an especially dangerous time because food and daylight became scarce, which frightened the European and Celtic people. They believed that ghosts came back to haunt the earth on Halloween, and they were afraid to leave their homes under the belief that they might encounter the spirits. If they needed to leave home, they wore masks so that the ghosts would think they were other ghostly beings. Costumes have evolved significantly since then. “Traditional” costumes include witches, ghosts, skeletons and vampires, but nowadays, it’s most popular to dress up as celebrities, fictional characters or political figures.

Pumpkin carving

According to the U.S. Census, 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins were produced to carve up as jack-o-lanterns in 2005, earning the major pumpkin producing states $106 million. This American-born tradition put the pumpkin, which is in season during Halloween time, to use as a fun activity and decoration. It has become possibly the most prominent symbol of the holiday, and although carving a scary face into the pumpkin is traditional, one will find a myriad of facial expressions and other designs in today’s jack-o-lanterns. This tradition sprouted from an old British custom of carving vegetables like rutabagas and turnips into lanterns. Today, they are carved for fun and to make a tasty snack — toasted pumpkin seeds.

Bobbing for apples

Fill a bucket or other large container up with water, add some apples, and you’re good to go. While the apples float at the top of the water, participants in this game try and bite into an apple and retrieve it from the bucket — no hands allowed. According to Celtic tradition, apples are associated with love goddesses.

Bobbing for apples was originally a game for unmarried young people. The first person able to retrieve an apple was supposedly the next to marry — a tradition much like the throwing of the bridal bouquet.

Halloween treats

There are numerous foods associated with Halloween, including candy of all sorts, caramel apples, candy corn, popcorn balls and anything with pumpkin in it.

Of course, all of this candy couldn’t stay fun and harmless for long — in the last few decades, there have been several “candy scares” in which items like poison, needles and drugs were found inside candy distributed during trick-or-treating. Paranoid parents now make their children cut up their mini candy bars to ensure they do not contain foreign objects or they refuse to let their kids eat candy from strangers altogether. Aww, mom!

> Comments