Halloween in America. Where did it come from and why is it great?

Halloween is, primarily, an annual American holiday celebrated each year on October 31.

It is a holiday everyone loves, and are looking forward to for months. The events around Halloween are many and very different, some I experienced myself. On the Upper West Side in New York, we walked by a few places advertising for pet parades and pet costume competitions. On the Lower West Side, they were celebrating the pre-Halloween weekend with children’s playground Halloween party down on Bleecker’s street and hundreds of families had turned up to enter their child into the competition for best costume and play with the other Halloween dressed-up kids.

House on Upper West Side, New York

In Boston, they had a few block parties. We attended one pre-Halloween-weekend Dia de los Muertos at the Taza chocolate factory with free chocolate and traditional Mexican dancing for the season.
In the evening the streets were filled with dressed-up adults out to have a good night. All dressed up, some scary, some funny, some... something else, but all out to have fun.

Red Hook, Brooklyn

The Origin of Halloween
Being from a country that doesn’t traditionally celebrate Halloween I was amazed at the time, money and effort many Americans put into Halloween. They spent hundreds of dollars on candy, sweets, costumes and decorations for their homes, and most of them happily and engaged in this celebration. I didn’t know what the origin of Halloween was when I came to America this year, and to my surprise most people I encountered and asked didn’t know the origin either.

After a bit of research and debate put together with a bit of help from our best friend, the internet, I discovered that Halloween can trace its origin back to the European continent long back. It has roots in ancient European traditions mixed over time with a bit of Hispanic and a bit with different North American influences.
Halloween has its origin as an old Celtic harvest festival, which by default gives it pagan roots. The tradition seems to date back to about 2,000 years ago and to a location in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France. The harvest festival culminated in a three-day celebration with their New Year starting on November 1.

Alpharetta, Georgia

According to Celtic believes the night before the New Year was magical. This was the night when the ghosts of the dead could roam around and return to earth because the boundary between the world of the living and the dead became blurred for this last night of the old year. The name, however, should have its origin in Allhalloween, All Hallows’Eve or All Saints’ Eve and started out as a festival for remembrance of the saints, martyrs and faithful that had passed away. This means that somehow along the way it was adopted into the Christian religion. It seems to emerge into its current from somewhere in 1800 where Americans started to dress up and go from door to door for food or money.

In the parts of America I visited on this trip the Halloween traditions seems to center around decorating the houses to be scary and often very well done with carved pumpkins and the trick-or-treating where the kids roam around the neighborhoods and get scared by the houses and collect candy and sweets on the 31^st of October. Fun fact is that ¼ of all candy sold in America is purchased for Halloween. For adults Halloween often seems to involve costume parties and horror movies which I will touch on later.

Alpharetta, Georgia

Walking through the streets of New York I would see hundreds of houses that were decorated for Halloween. Some were very scary, some were beautifully detailed out and aesthetically pleasing and all were very true to Halloween. Most gardens in New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Cambridge, and Suburb-Atlanta were decorated were consistent with containing graveyards, skeletons, pumpkins, spiders and traditionally scary stuff.

On the 31^st of October, I was with my family in Georgia. My family doesn’t have any children living at home but none the less they have decorated the home for Halloween and spent hours and hours happily giving away candy and sweets to cute children knocking the door and yelling trick-or-treats. The first came knocking around 18.30 with the youngest children accompanied with the older family. It was an all-night affair though, continuing until late evening with dressed-up children roaming the streets. A few of the children didn't like the candy they were given and asked to exchange or asked for specific brands of candy but the majority were polite, adorable and happy.

Upper West Side, New York

The adults had their Halloween celebration on the last weekend in October. I didn't take any pictures on the weekend of Halloween. I wasn't sure if it would put me in the category of displaying pornographic pictures to show them around because many of the ladies weren't wearing many clothes. Even for cold autumn Boston, they showed a lot of skin. Many of them were funny and very well done and I was impressed by both the males and females engagement into this festival but I couldn't help thinking it was pneumonia in the making.

One thing I would like to make a comment on is that I was amazed that all female costumes regardless of what they were supposed to be dressed out as had a "slutty-ness" about them. They were very revealing, short and low cut. I understand that women want to look their best and showofff their attributes but I couldn't help to wonder whether it is a tendency in our society? Is it a common belief that this is the way women are supposed to dress-up around Halloween. Visiting Halloween shops I did become aware that the very revealing costumes were the majority of Halloween-costumes sold for women. Is that demand or something else?

It made me remember when I watched Mean Girls in high school and someone says: Halloween is that one time of the year when girls can dress like sluts and no one can say anything about it. The hardcore girls just were lingerie and some sort of animal ears. So yeah maybe I'm just old school.... but it did look cold.