Today, we all know Halloween as the “scary” holiday that rolls around every year on the last day of October. All the kids dress up in innocent costumes and go around trick-or-treating while the adults dress up in sexy costumes and attend parties that are more like regular parties with everyone dressed up in costumes than actual Halloween themed parties. But you might wonder what traditions before today’s traditions were like? Well I wondered the same thing and did some research. Here’s what I found.
As I featured in the History of Halloween post, Halloween can be traced back to the Roman Catholics who celebrated All Hallows Eve (or Hallowmas), the day before All Saints Day celebrated on November 1 or back to the Celts who celebrated Samhain, when souls of the dead would return to the earth for one night a year.
Sexy Classic Halloween Costumes
According to the book “The Halloween Handbook” by Ed Morrow, in England during All Souls Day (or All Hallows Eve), a tradition similar to trick-or-treating existed; poor people would go door to do searching for soul cakes, which were sweet buns with currants in exchange for prayers for the household’s dead relatives.
Obviously Halloween wasn’t a widespread holiday in America until hoards of European immigrants began to spread across the country. Thanks to the Irish moving over due to the Irish Potato Famine, we have the tradition of the Jack-o-Lantern. As America moved into the 19th century, pranks were a popular tradition for Halloween; greasing doorknobs and jamming doorbells were some favorites.
Unlike today, most of these pranks were tolerated. Another tradition that was popular but isn’t discussed much was portrayed in the 1944 film “Meet Me in St. Louis”, which takes place in 1903. A young child would try to seek revenge on a grumpy old man from the neighborhood by ringing the doorbell and throwing flour in the face of said grump. Often bonfires were built in celebration and masks were expected for most children, even if not in costume.
Many games telling fortunes were popular among young adults; if a young woman peeled an apple and threw the peel behind her back, the peel would shape into the first letter of her future husband, and it was believed that if an unmarried woman sat in front of a mirror in a dark room, the face of her future husband would appear. If a skull appeared, then she was doomed to die unmarried.
It wasn’t until the 1920s that Halloween became much more of a children’s holiday. This was partially due to the fact that the harmless pranks of the previous decades were quickly escalating into vandalism and true damage. By the 1930s, the media began to spread the idea of trick-or-treating in the place of the traditional pranks.
In order to get more candy than usual, some children would perform some sort of bit of show biz, such as singing a song, dancing or reciting poetry, hence the “trick” part of trick-or-treat. It also wasn’t until the 1930s that costumes were advertised and expected from trick-or-treaters. This tradition has obviously escalated into what we know today.
Halloween has a very long and somewhat obscured history. There are different accounts of what Halloween traditions happened where and what kinds of activities were common.
This was the best information that I could come up with and I believe for the most part that it is all true. Even if it’s not, it’s probably not too far off from the truth, giving Halloween a very interesting history behind it.
Emma Rae Curtis is a costume/dressing up/makeup & accessories expert. She mainly writes about Halloween but also about all things costume and dress-up related.
Actually, the Celtic harvest festival Samhain predates All Hallow’s Eve. When the Roman Catholic Church named November 1st All Saints Day October 31st became known as All Hallow’s Eve and many of the Celtic traditions were adopted by Romans for their celebrations.
And you can thank the Scottish for most of the North American Hallowe’en traditions, including Trick or Treating, as well as the name itself, since Hallowe’en is Scottish for All Hallows’ Eve.