Halloween takes place on the 31st of October, and is also known as All Hallows’ Eve. It started as a pagan holiday, and has now moved into an important part of American culture. It is a celebration of the changing of the seasons from summer to fall, and also leads up to the fall and winter holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. In the olden days, it was a holiday used to ward off evil spirits, as it was thought that that particular night brought out all manner of demons and ghouls. The Halloween business is a huge industry, and most communities in America celebrate the holiday.
Americans traditionally celebrate Halloween in a standard way. On the 31st, adults and children alike dress up in their favorite costumes and go trick-or-treating. These costumes can range from everyone’s favorite ghosts and monsters (like vampires, werewolves, and mummies) to people’s favorite licensed characters from their favorite TV shows and movies, like Iron Man or Dora the Explorer. When going trick-or-treating, people go around from door to door around their neighborhood with sacks or buckets, knock on people’s doors, and shout “Trick or treat!” The people who answer the door then give them an array of different candies and sweets, which they then put in their sack and move on. By the end of the night, trick-or-treaters can gather quite a bit of candy. Houses often stock up on candy, and decorate their homes accordingly; they put up decorations such as fake cobwebs, plastic or cardboard mummies and spiders, and so on. Over the course of the night of Halloween, the whole neighborhood is encouraged to celebrate the ability to go out in costumes and have fun.
There are many important symbols to Halloween culture – one of them is the jack-o-lantern, which is a hollowed-out pumpkin with a face carved into it. Jack-o-lanterns are meant to ward off evil spirits, but nowadays they are mostly used as spooky decorations. People can carve whatever they want on them, and there are even pumpkin carving competitions to see who can create the most innovative jack-o-lantern. The typical colors of Halloween are orange and black, and other decorations celebrate the images of skulls, boogeymen, ghosts, and the Grim Reaper. In a way, Halloween is a celebration of death, and the acknowledgement that all of us will die someday – we might as well have fun with it while we are still alive.
Halloween in American culture symbolizes a certain desire to act not like ourselves; when we are dressed up as a creature of the night, we are not restrained by our own identities, and can sort of do what we want. It is also fun to be scared, and Halloween allows people to scare themselves in an acceptable, fun and temporary way. Many horror movies come out around Halloween, so that people can scare themselves that way as well; there are many cities that have professional haunted houses, fully equipped with real scares and actors in gore makeup, so you can go get scared for real in those places. During this time of the year, Americans allow themselves to be frightened and terrified, as it can feel great and thrilling. By permitting themselves to be silly, Halloween can be very therapeutic for Americans seeking thrills.
Works Cited
Diane C. Halloween Merrymaking: An Illustrated Celebration Of Fun, Food, And Frolics From
Halloweens Past, Pelican Publishing Company (2004).
