Halloween as we all know is a day to carve your pumpkins, dress up, eats loads of bad food (aka candy), and to scare or be scared. Whether you are the tricker treater or vice versa you are kind of forced to celebrate Halloween. Before I chat about this years' experience let me explain to you why other years have been different.
I've dressed up for halloween since I was a child, my elementary school put on a whole halloween school party that was quite elaborate. We could go bobbing for apples, there was a little carnival, and there was a scare maze, there was even a halloween costume competition. Pretty cool school right?
Then there was middle school, where the halloween party hosted by the school was even grander. There were actual rides that the school rented, there was a scary maze, t-shirt makers (I still have my shirt), gypsy readings, and a dance! This was definitely a step up. We had a weekend of fun and really up to this point there was no need for me to go out trick or treating. I'm also not including the family friend halloween parties.
Highschool, this is more of a blur for me. Our high school did not have a halloween party, but we did have a winter dance that no one went to. This was more so the age where kids started going out trick or treating with their friends. I remember going to a friends house that had hosted a halloween party and leaving with almost everyone to go trick or treating. That was fun but it was always weird to me to knock on a strangers door.
Now to University...
My first year I did a lot of halloween things. I had a school event that the all girls dorm Alpha Chi hosted for the kids in the neighborhood to go trick or treating to every door. It was pretty fun and my roommates and I were the only "scary" door so we got a lot of people. Our theme was Arkham Asylum, I was Poison Ivy, my other roommates were Catwoman and Harley Quinn.
As much fun as that year was I still wanted to have a crazy halloween experience so my sophomore year my friends from back home and I went to Hard Halloween and to other halloween parties. I dressed up as one of the witches from Coven AHS, even though a lot of people kept asking me if I was Lady Gaga so I just went with that.
My Junior year I didn't really do anything besides work. We all decided at work to be a biker gang! We did have trick or treaters at the store!
My gap year Chase and I went to a Symphony on Halloween day that was a Nightmare Before Christmas. We were dressed up as Marilyn Monroe and JFK. I aslo filmed a youtube video creating three last minute looks!
Now this year...
We did all of the "typical" halloween activities! We went to a pumpkin patch with my family which was even cooler than we had expected. We carved pumpkins, we went to the Haunted Hayride in Griffith Park. We visited our schools event that I had participated in my freshman year, and most importantly we got Boo-rito's at Chipotle!! Chase dressed up as Buzz Lightyear and I went as Chanel from Scream Queens.
Now the difference...
I don't know if it is my maturity, perhaps its my different lifestyle and approach towards life. But I started questioning things. Why do we carve pumpkins and leave them outside our door? Why is bobbing for apples a halloween event? Why do we go trick or treating? Why do people go out to amusement parks to get scared? I did a lot of reasearch and found the answer to my questions. Those answers make me not want to celebrate halloween any further. As a couple Chase and I have decided that this year was our last year celebrating halloween. We also do not want our children when we do have them to be partaking in this "holiday."
The answers? Well here you go. Pumpkin carving was not always done using pumpkins, originally a gourd. Pumpkins were used instead because of their discovery since they are native to North America. Pumpkin carving was a celtic thing, it was done to welcome the spirits of dead relatives and scare away other spirits that weren't welcomed. Bobbing for apples? It was a Greek goddess' of apples and fertility, they bobbed for apples to please her and hope for fertility. Trick or treating? This originated in Europe and it was done to appease the spirits of the dead. People went around asking for the first born virgin or a food severance, if the family could not come up with either than there was a star placed on their door with blood. That was done so that the spirits that crossed over knew which houses to attack so to speak. Wanna get scared? This was also originated in Europe to help run the spirits out of town and scare them away. All of these events were done on halloween day because that is when the border between spiritual and material is said to be its thinnest.
Whether you take this history and shrug it off your shoulder or take it to heart is up to you.
It could all just be a big scary story, right?
xo,
Ivon Auriemma
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