Here's a link. This is a quick little read about Halloween and its development in the "New World". I've been a stanch believer that Halloween in America today is well and truly crafted here, though very much of traditions from the "Old World". But the conglomeration of the holiday is well and formed here in the States, from the carving of the first jack-o'-lanterns to trick or treating as a homegrown manifestation.
A lot of these Halloween traditions were simultaneously developed up north with our Canadian cousins too, I'm sure. But with the bigger population Halloween became larger here in the States. And this story gives us some insight into the idea that while Halloween has some traditions that date back to pre-Christ times, what we celebrate here today in America is very much a melting pot of our own construction. This is important to me as this holiday is very much a part of the American experience and identity. If I have to say it aloud, I have enormous pride in celebrating Halloween as an American.
And we can begin to see clearly just how young our North American holiday of All Hollows Eve really is. In less than a century Halloween has come to be the symbol of all things spooky fun here, whether you celebrate in costume trick or treating or just decorating your lawn and home for said trick or treaters, or sit in all evening watching horror movies or TV specials, Halloween has today become the cultural equivalent of Edgar Allan Poe if he had run for POTUS.
I bring this up now because it's painfully obvious that Halloween is changing here in the States. Every generation makes Halloween theirs, but it seems to have really changed during the Pandemic. This year I noticed only a fraction of homes in our neighborhood decorated this year, and even in Salem when we visited in mid-October had barely impressed, as I mentioned in an earlier post. I want the holiday to remain the same as it was when I was growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, but Halloween doesn't care what I want; it cares what we want. And what we do with it.
Trunk or Treat seems to be claiming the mantle that door-to-door Trick or Treating once held. For the little 'uns, that's totally cool. It's perhaps safer, being held in a somewhat contained area an all. But for kids on the cusp of adolescence, where's the fun in that? The perceived danger. The bag snatchers lying in wait behind a bush. The neighbor who may grab you if you show up alone and the trick's well and truly on you? Now of course I don't want any of that to happen to Anyone. But these are the things going through your head when you're out there in the dark and twelve years old.
For me personally, Halloween started with those wonderful pumpkin pails from McDonald's in 1986 that my mom would take my sister and me to get in October at the McD's down the street. Or maybe it was the haunted house in the old school across the street from this McDonald's... Or just dressing up as Dracula in the late-'80s. Or staying up late and watching scary movies on TV when my mom went to bed. All of these things imprinted Halloween on my young and growing mind to where today it's a complete addiction year-round.
Now, I don't know what Halloween will be, or what it will look like in the years to come, but I know that I can personally make Halloween special each and every year. I've turned it into a month-long celebration - Halloweentober - and I'll continue to find new ways to celebrate my way, considering we do not have little ones of our own... But this remains an important part of my life. Through my memories of dozens of Halloweens, I'll keep it alive any way that I can until I no longer can.
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