What is Halloween?

Halloween is a yearly tradition observed on October 31st. I didn’t really know what Halloween was until I lived in the US and experienced it first-hand.

When this festivity is just around the corner, the first thing you’ve noticed is that stores and malls have huge display of Halloween costumes for both children and adults and even for your beloved pets.

Traditionally, Halloween costumes are patterned after scary figures such as monsters, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular cartoon characters, celebrities, superheroes, princes, princesses and anything that goes beyond your imagination and creativity.

The feeling of an eerie atmosphere can be felt in the air as people would embellished their yards, porches and front doors with Halloween decors and props to achieve the scariest look and feel.  Americans decorate their houses with scarecrows, witches, spider webs, skeletons, skulls, etc., with illuminated strings of lights in orange and purple at night.

You will see pumpkin patches all over town, a place that sell pumpkins of different shapes and sizes. It is an important element of the tradition; people will carve them to make jack-o’-lanterns. Placing lighted pumpkins known as jack-o'-lanterns in the window is a way of welcoming children dressed up in Halloween costumes for trick or treating.

Every household has to make sure that they have plenty of chocolates and candies to give for the trick or treaters who would come knocking at the door on the evening of Halloween. It would not be fun to have some naughty kids to play tricks on you, so be prepared for the giveaway treats.

For our family tradition on Halloween dinner, we always have pumpkin pies topped with vanilla ice cream for dessert.  At first I was trying to bake the pie myself but it came out soggy, so the following year we just bought a fresh baked pumpkin pie at the bakery instead. It’s the best-selling pastry during Halloween so bakeries always bake plenty. Then some leftover pie would be perfect for your morning coffee the next day.  Just the thought of it, makes me miss pumpkin pie, I can’t buy it here where I am now.

Usually when there are less trick or treaters than what you’ve expected it means more chocolates leftovers, mostly my son and I would have weeks supply of this treat.

Common activities you can do during Halloween:

Trick-or-treating

 Attending costume parties,

 Carving jack-o'-lanterns

 Bonfires

 Apple bobbing

Visiting haunted attractions

 Playing pranks

 Telling scary stories

 Watching horror films

photos credit: MorgueFile