Pic by opiummuseum
Do you ever wonder why we celebrate the holidays we celebrate? Do you ever look beyond the festivities, gifts, and laughter to understand the roots of the occasion. Maybe you have and maybe you haven’t, but Halloween has a unique history. History.com says that when Europeans came to America they brought their varied Halloween traditions with them. It wasn’t as prevalent in the rigid protestant north as it was in southern colonies like Maryland. Different European ethnic groups and American Indian traditions meshed to form the American version of Halloween.
The first festivities included “Play Parties” that celebrated harvest and people came together to dance, sing, tell stories about the dead, and tell each other’s fortunes. Telling Ghost stories was common as well. History.com also notes that in the second half of the 19th century America was flood with immigrants especially from Ireland, whom helped popularize Halloween nationally.
The Trick or Treat Tradition came from English and Irish Traditions, and Americans began to go from house to house asking for money or food. In the late 1800s though, there was a movement to take the witchcraft out of Halloween and make the holiday more about community get-togethers and games. Halloween eventually lost its religious and superstitious overtones. Trick or Treating evolved over time to be an inexpensive way for the community to share the celebration. Also, in theory giving kids treats prevented them from being the victim of tricks.
Halloween is now the second biggest commercial Holiday, where Americans an estimated spend 6.9 billion dollars. Knowing the history may just be of trivial consequence, but it will help you understand the dynamics behind such a popular holiday!
Tags: biggest, community, festivities, halloween, history, Holidays, houses, irish, money, overeating, playing, s, treats
This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 10:39 am and is filed under Holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
