2. Welcome to America!
It was Irish immigrants who brought Halloween to America in the early nineteenth century. Today, Americans wear costumes along with other accessories like those toric colored contact lenses.
“Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition.” Young women would do tricks with yarn or apple pairings to try to figure out the name of their future husbands. Whoever was first to get the apple in an apple bobbing contest, was believed to be the first to get married.
3. Candy and Halloween Haven’t Always Been BFFs
Candy wasn’t marketed for Halloween until the 1950s. Before there was Halloween candy, there was candy for Washington’s Birthday, which included marzipan cherries and cocoa-dusted logs.
In fact, a trick-or-treater in about 1940-1950, would receive coins, fruit, nuts, cookies, toys, cakes or candy.
4. Halloween Traditions from Around the World
The traditions vary from paying respect to late family members like in Nepal and Czech Republic to Japan’s Obon festival where they dress in traditional Yukata and Happi dress to celebrate their ancestors. England’s version of Halloween is Guy Fawkes Night, celebrating the day Guy Fawkes’ attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. My favorite is Australia: they spend the holiday hanging out at the beach.
