Halloween Trivia

Once again, I have dug up some useful/useless knowledge (depending on your point of view) about the origins of a widely celebrated holiday and the traditions of said holiday.  This time we're discussing Halloween.  Halloween is the favorite holiday of many of my friends, but I personally haven't been big into it since I was a kid (probably due to the lack of candy once I was too old for trick or treating).  As an adult I just can't ever seem to think of a good costume and often leave it to the last minute.  The exception to this was 2 years ago when my friend Jackie and I dressed up as surgeons from "Grey's Anatomy."

My super awesome "Seatle Grace" badge

Jackie was very jealous of my scalpal so she was going to inject me with her needle and take it from me 

Mark (my friend Cristy's husband) dressed up as Homer Simpson 

Cristy as Marge Simpson 

Paul and Craig as Mario and Luigi 

This year is the first year I've decorated for Halloween (probably because we have Paxton now) and we haven't ever handed out candy in the 6 years that I've lived here.  This isn't because we are "Halloween Scrooges" or anything.  I always seem to have been working or out somewhere so I never bothered to get any candy.  And from what I've heard from friends who live in the same area there aren't a lot of kids who go trick-or-treating around here (I think Cristy said they had 10 kids total last year).  That is kind of weird to me since we were always chomping at the bit to get out after our candy when I was a child regardless of the fact that the vast majority of my Halloween memories include having to wear a winter coat and/or snow pants under my costume (Jack Frost ring any bells, Kelly?).  Anyways, I plan to buy some candy this year and I guess if we don't get any trick or treaters I'll just have to eat it.  But enough about me, here's what I discovered about the origins and traditions of Halloween (most of this is from Wikipedia) in North America, Ireland and Great Britain.

The origin of Halloween lies in the traditions of the Celtic people.  They held a major celebration near the end of our month of October, which they called called "Samhain," (pronounced sow-an or sow-in) a festival to recognize the end of summer.  The Celts believed that the border between this world and the next was thinnest on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through.  Friends and relatives who had died were honored and would often return, with their souls inhabiting an animal - often a black cat.  Harmful spirits were warded off and it is believed that the need to ward off these harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks.  Their purpose was to disguise oneself as a harmful spirit and thus avoid harm as the spirits would be frightened and not bother you.

In celebration of the recently completed harvest, Celts would give offerings of food to the Gods. They often went from door to door to collect food to donate to their deities.  Also, young Celts would ask the townspeople for kindling and wood, and take it to top of the hill for the Samhain bonfire.  These are two of the possible origins of present day "trick or treating."   Samhain was a fire festival and sacred bonfires were lit on the tops of hills in honor of the Gods. The townspeople would take an ember from the bonfire to their homes and re-light the fire in their family hearth. The ember would usually be carried in a holder - often a turnip or gourd.

The word Halloween is first attested in the 16th century and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All-Hallows-Even ("evening"), that is, the night before All Hallows Day. Up through the early 20th century, the spelling "Hallowe'en" was frequently used.

Trick or treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween where children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The word "trick" refers to a (mostly idle) "threat" to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given. In some parts of Scotland children still go guising. In this custom the child performs some sort of trick, i.e. sings a song or tells a ghost story, to earn their treats.  (Apparently my Dad is Scottish since he usually tells children they have to sing a song before he'll give them any candy.  This was soooo embarassing when I was younger!)

The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays dates back to the Middle Ages and includes Christmas wassailing.  Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of “souling,” when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2).  It originated in Ireland and Britain, although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy.  Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy “The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of “puling like a beggar at Hallowmas.”

Common traditions and Halloween symbols:

Jack-o-lanterns: The souling practice of commemorating the souls in purgatory with candle lanterns carved from turnips, became adapted into the making of jack-o'-lanterns.  In traditional Celtic Halloween festivals, large turnips were hollowed out, carved with faces and placed in windows to ward off evil spirits.  The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America where pumpkins are both readily available and much larger – making them easier to carve than turnips.  The term "Jack-o'-lantern" came from an Irish folk tale of the 18th century.   Jack was an Irishman and he tricked the Devil into climbing an apple tree.  He then cut a cross symbol in the tree trunk, thus trapping the Devil in the branches.  When Jack died, he was unable to again access to Heaven because of his meanness.  The Devil, having a long memory, would not allow him into Hell.  So he was forced to walk the earth endlessly.  The devil took pity on him and gave him a piece of coal to light his path.  Jack put it inside a hollowed-out turnip that he had been eating.  (For more variations on the legend of Jack click here.)

Apples have long been associated with female deities, and with immortality, resurrection, and knowledge.  One reason is that if an apple is cut through its equator, it will reveal a five-pointed star outlined at the center of each hemisphere.  This was a pentagram -- a Goddess symbol among the Roma (Gypsies), ancient Celts, ancient Egyptians, etc. There are many Halloween folk traditions associated with apples: 

·         Unmarried people would attempt to take a bite out of an apple bobbing in a pail of water, or suspended on a string. The first person to do so was believed to be the next to marry.

·         Peeling an apple in front of a candle-lit mirror was believed to produce the image of one's future spouse.

·         Attempting to produce a long unbroken apple peel was said to estimate the number of years you had to live. The longer the peel, the longer your life expectancy.

The imagery of Halloween is derived from many sources, including national customs, works of Gothic and horror literature (such as the novels Frankenstein and Dracula), and classic horror films (such as The Mummy).  Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows, are also prevalent and homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween.  Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, the occult, magic, or mythical monsters.  Traditional characters include ghosts, witches, skeletons, vampires, werewolves, demons, bats, and black cats.  The colors black and orange are associated with the celebrations because of the darkness of night and the color of bonfires, autumn leaves, and jack-o'-lanterns.

Costumes
Halloween costumes are traditionally modeled after monsters such as ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils.  Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses.  Costuming became popular for Halloween parties in the US in the early 20th century, as often for adults as for children. The first mass-produced Halloween costumes appeared in stores in the 1930s when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in the United States.

Games
There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. One common game is dunking or apple bobbing, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water and the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin.  Some games traditionally played at Halloween are forms of divination. A traditional Scottish form of divining one's future spouse is to carve an apple in one long strip, then toss the peel over one's shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name.  Unmarried women were told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror. However, if they were destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards from the late 19th century and early 20th century.  The telling of ghost stories and viewing of horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of television series and Halloween-themed specials (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before the holiday, while new horror films are often released theatrically before the holiday to take advantage of the atmosphere.

Religious Perspective

Christian attitudes towards Halloween are quite diverse.  Many Christians ascribe no negative significance to Halloween, treating it as a purely secular holiday devoted to celebrating "imaginary spooks" and handing out candy.  To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage.

Other Christians feel concerned about Halloween, and reject the holiday because they feel it trivializes - or celebrates - paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs.  Some consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith because of its origin as a pagan "Festival of the Dead".  For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween because they believe anything that originated from a pagan holiday should not be celebrated by true Christians.

Some Fun Facts

Halloween is the holiday when the most candy is sold; it is second only to Christmas in total sales.  North Americans spend over $20 million on Halloween candies yearly.

Halloween is the third-largest party occasion next to Christmas and New Year's Eve.

For many decades, the United Nations Children's' Fund (UNICEF) has distributed boxes to children so that they can collect money at Halloween time. During the 1950's, a few US public schools banned the UNICEF boxes, over suspicions that it might be a Communist plot.