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Last Updated: Sep 2nd, 2008 - 19:12:01 |
While trick or treating is one of the most popular activities among the Halloween celebration in America, it is also one of the most recent developments. With less than a hundred years of tradition behind it, the practice of children begging candy door-to-door has evolved into community wide events.
Historians' best guess as to what prompted the idea of trick or treat goes back to the English middle ages when the church sanctioned the practice of "souling". This was devised as a means for beggars to request food, usually cakes, in return for prayers that the church said were extra insurance that a deceased person could be granted entry into heaven. While soul cake day has dropped out of common usage in England, it is still popular in Ireland and Scotland and it is from these influences it is believed the idea arose.
The trick or treat activity did not appear until the early twentieth century and was first mentioned in print in the late 1930's. Through the 1940's the practice of trick or treat began getting more mention in children's magazines and television and radio shows. By 1952 Walt Disney immortalized it in a cartoon by that name. Trick or treat had come to stay.
As trick or treating developed through the mid-century mark, many people began to find problems with the "trick" part of the event. Supposedly is you did not offer a "treat" to your visitors they would play some prank on you. While soaping windows could be considered safe fun, increased vandalism in the name of the "trick" has almost outlawed the practice in some areas. Usually communities will organize a specific night for the event and limit it to a few hours and a specific age limit on participants. Extra police patrols are mounted to deal with those who would spoil the fun for everyone else.
Dressing up in a costume for the events is a completely American invention and was a result of the success for Christmas products that had been so successful when started in the 1880's. A different holiday required a different variety of merchandise. Using the barely remembered ideas of the Celtic Samhain festivals of pre-Roman Europe, they populated the shelves with costumes of witches, zombies, ghosts, ghouls and any other monster they could think of. Now, a child without some sort of costume for trick or treat night is virtually unheard of.
Trick or treat took another blow to its popularity in the late 1900's when some sociopathic people embedded razor blades, pins and poisons into the candy they gave out. This horrendous tragedy forever changed the face of Halloween's trick or treating and put more emphasis on other ways to celebrate the holiday. While the event started in good fun for all, it is unlikely the practice will last through a second hundred years.
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