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Health & Fitness

Halloween Traditions Change Over Time - Historically and Personally

Just as Halloween has changed since it was first celebrated 2000 years ago, my Trick or Treat experiences are not the same but still fun!

Ok so for us historians, Halloween dates back 2000 years to the ancient Celtic Festival of Samhain. They celebrated the New Year on Nov. 1 and believed that on the night before the boundary between the living and the dead became blurred. So they believed that on Oct. 31, ghosts returned back to Earth causing trouble. To commemorate the event they built sacred bonfires where they gathered to burn crops and have animal sacrifices and wore costumes of animal’s heads and skins.

In October, early Romans (43 A.D.) commemorated the passing of their dead and honored Pomora, the Roman goddess of fruits and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple. This explains the tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.

Halloween has always been a special day for me. Growing up in the 1960’s -1970’s in a small town we planned our costumes weeks ahead of time. When we were young it was a slip in super hero costume with a plastic mask. In my teens it got more creative with making our own gruesome ones.  Then we had free reign of the neighborhood and went Trick or Treating until dinner, then back out until we hit every house in the area.

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I remember one year as a preteen I got up, put on my costume and came into the kitchen, where my mom told me I had to change into my regular clothes to go to school first. After kicking and screaming for a while, I finally relented and had to wait out the day to get myself re-suited and out to collect all my bounty.

I remember that about half a block away there was a bakery that baked bread for all over Long Island. We would go in there and get fresh rolls and then we would go next door to Mrs. Malchiodi and she would give us butter for our bread. (They would never do that today). This was the days of getting pennies and treat bags filled with loose candy, fruit and homemade treats.

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I have two older brothers and one year we had a stuffed scarecrow with a rubber pigs mask on our front stoop. My brother decided to get in the suit and sit still until someone came to the door and then scared them to death. Another time my older brother tried that with another stuffed scarecrow with a gas mask down our basement.

As we grew up we always looked forward to Halloween and Trick or Treating but then came the years where we packed eggs, shaving cream and socks filled with chalk for our turf wars. It was all in fun and no one was seriously hurt beyond a bruised arm or a scrape from running into a tree branch. Of course we had many dozen eggs confiscated and ate eggs for every meal until they were all consumed. But no lasting scars. They came off when we took off our costumes and washed for the night.

Yes, as you can imagine I have fond memories and miss those days very much but we have since moved on to our next stage in life.

When Howard and I moved to KC we took on the adult role for Halloween. We had a great stone porch that ran the front of the house. We would invite a couple of friends over to dress up and have pizza on the porch and hand out candy for all of the kids. For the kids, we knew we would give them an added treat of reaching into the coin jar. This became a nice yearly tradition thanks to my grandfather (saving for another story).

When we moved back into Brooklyn Heights and lived in a 4th story Victorian walk up, we again adapted our customs to the new area, but still hung out on the porch to hand out candy.

And for the last 5 years we have been celebrating a Malverne Halloween. I know that times have changed. I find I am eating more candy then I give out but there are some great groups of children escorted by their parents to Trick Or Treat around the neighborhood. Then, there are the minivans that pull up to canvas the block. It’s still fun and great to see all of the costumes.

A couple of years we even hosted a Historical Society Halloween Party for the board and their friends. It was great and we hope to have another one again.

So once again I look forward to seeing everyone out and about, collecting their treats. I will be out front looking for you. Enjoy the day and will see you around Cornwell and Norwood Aves.

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