October Kicks Off The Busy Holiday Season With Halloween Fun
Trick-Or-Treaters Used To Ask For Money Or Food, Not Candy
The month of October is a fun and busy time. Kids have settled into their back-to-school routines. Plans for Thanksgiving and December holidays – Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa – are being discussed. The annual rush of festive activities in the classroom and at home is just getting started.
First comes Halloween. It’s on the minds of many children who are looking forward to an afternoon of costume shopping or crafting, and a night of candy trolling. For parents, it’s an opportunity for memorable photographs and a reminder of their own experiences and decades-old photos that must be sent off to a picture scanning service to preserve.
Yet how many kids – and adults – actually stop to think about the history behind Halloween? Our childhood memories of the Oct. 31st holiday likely involve school or community parades, such as this photo of children lined up as princesses, devils, witches, superheroes and cowboys. As kids, we would parade in front of each other, and teachers and parents, to show off our costumes. Dusk brought out the plastic pumpkin pails and trips around the neighborhood for candy.
Halloween, though, is much older than the children who enjoy it, dating back many, many generations. The holiday can be traced back 2,000 years to a Celtic festival called Samhain. The Celts considered November 1st the New Year, so they would celebrate the night before. They also believed that ghosts would appear on this night. When the Romans eventually took over most of the Celtic land, their holidays commemorating the dead and honoring the fruit and trees goddess began mingling with Samhain, leading to Halloween.
In the United States, Irish immigrants popularized Halloween in the latter half of the nineteenth century. And what started as an act of asking for money or food is now the well-known and much-loved tradition of trick-or-treating for candy. Memories and customs such as these can be savored by preserving old photos through picture scanning – because who knows what Halloween traditions will be like in another 2,000 years?
Tags: Halloween, picture scanning