Happy Halloween!
Halloween in the USA is quite a far cry from the original festival of Samhain. How did Halloween evolve into a Candy-giving festival? Here are some Candy-Free options for Halloween.
Samhain was celebrated by the Celts in North Western Europe nearly 2000 years ago. To the Celts, Samhain was essentially their New Year’s Eve celebration. This was the end of the summer, and the beginning of Winter.
Living in Maine, I can completely appreciate the sentiment. As the saying goes, if you need to plan your Halloween costume so it can fit over a snow-suit, you might be from Maine.
The Ancient Celts
The origin of wearing costumes however is rooted in the ancient Celtic celebrations. The Celts wore costumes of animal skins and heads. That parallels nicely today with some of our children wearing all sorts of costumes, including ghosts, goblins, and super heroes. Picture a child dressed up as Wolverine… The would appear quite animal-like.
Fast forward about 1500+ years, and cross the pond to America, and things changed quite a bit… The Samhain Festival mostly morphed into a harvest celebration. People would gather to celebrate and prepare for the winter to come, again, the parallels to life in Maine are pretty common…
The Beginning of Trick or Treat
In the late 1800’s, the celebration of Halloween had evolved to closely resemble what we have today. The holiday was a celebration of community get-togethers, and a celebration of the season. It is likely that this is when pumpkins became more involved in the celebration like they are today. Carving pumpkins into scary images was a way to harkens back to the origins of Samhain and the spirits associated with that holiday. At this point, the ties to the Celtic religion of the Druids had long since been severed.
As we get closer to the present, the celebration of Halloween becomes more like what we experience today. Between the 1920’s and 1950’s, Trick or Treating as we know it now had settled in.
All that Candy!
This is where my focus on Halloween comes in…
The original “treats” given out in the old times were little cakes or pastries and given to the poor. Eventually this changed to children, which is how we celebrate today.
How did Candy become such an essential part of our Halloween celebration? Well… simply put, it was the Candy makers… responding to demand. In the 1950’s, with the baby boom in full swing, and more and more children were heading from door to door to beg for treats. This included the implied threat that if they did not receive good treats, they would perform some pranks, or tricks.
In a perfect meshing of demand and supply, the Candy companies began catering to the demand for small easily portable and cheap sources of treats. Thus, Candy became a central part of the Halloween celebration, and Halloween essentially became a fully secular and commercial holiday. I know, a “secular commercial holiday” is a bit of an oxymoron.
Non-Candy Options…
So, what can we do for non-candy options to give out, or to encourage our young ones to desire over candy?
Check out the following:
Teal Pumpkin Program
9 Tips for Celebrating Halloween From Medtronic
15 Non-candy Halloween Treats Your Trick or Treaters Will Love.
26 Non-Candy Halloween Treats Kids Will Love!
Non-Candy Halloween Treat Ideas
Conclusion
Investigate these resources to check out non-candy ideas. The Adults achieve a big “Win-Win” by celebrating a candy free or at least candy-reduced Halloween is that we are not tempted by the leftovers.
Who hasn’t looked at the bowl of candy for the trick or treaters and scarfed one in-between knocks at the door? Who hasn’t gone through the candy haul of the kids, and cherry picked out the one or two (or 10) items the kids won’t miss… If it isn’t there to be a temptation, you can’t give in to that temptation.
Happy Halloween!
-Todd
Please check out our other posts:
- One Fun Sized Candy Bar… Really?
- 4 Ways Sugar is like Other Drugs
- 1 Simple Reason
And our Recommendations Page!
Related