Celebrating Halloween in the United states

Celebrating Halloween in the United States of America is almost as important as celebrating Christmas. To be honest, some of my neighbours here pay more attention to Halloween that they do to Christmas or any other major holiday. When I was a kid, I always wished I could walk around my neighbourhood, knock on people’s doors for Halloween and yell: ‘Trick or treat! ’. But those were only wishes, because people in my country do not celebrate Halloween. Why not? To be honest, I am asking myself the same question. The answer is because people in my country are very religious and they believe that celebrating Halloween is against God or Jesus. Sad but true.

So last year, when I moved to the United states of America, I was able to celebrate my first Halloween ever! And I must say, after celebrating it for the first time, I will always feel like I missed something amazing during my childhood. And the funny thing is that, in the United States of America, all the adults love Halloween as much as the kids do, which includes dressing up in amazing costumes.

How to prepare for Halloween?

As funny, or weird, as it sounds, if you go to any of the bigger grocery stores in the United States of America in August or later, you will already notice Halloween decorations on sale! I am serious. And there are even a few pop-up Halloween stores that only sell Halloween things and are only open in fall every year. And most of the things you can buy in those stores, are incredibly cool. And some of them are actually pretty scary, like from a horror movie set.

Most families in the part of the town I live in, started putting up Halloween decorations at the beginning of September, which is, in my opinion, at least, very early. And it is all one big competition. First, you see one family put a few things up, then the next family puts up a few more things, and all of a sudden, the whole town is glowing with orange light every night. My employers have an annual Halloween budget of five hundred dollars, meaning they spend that money just on decoration. Every single year.

It is unbelievable how many decorations some houses have.

People usually decorate the exterior of their houses first, and the common themes are graveyards, skeletons and spider webs (eewww! ).

Looks pretty convincing to me.

A graveyard in the backyard.

Then, about one month before Halloween, people decorate the interiors of their houses as well. You might be wondering why decorate the interior since people cannot see it from the outside, but people mostly either do it for their own pleasure, or they are hosting a Halloween party.

And then, a day or two before Halloween, it is time to carve pumpkins (they call them jack-o-lanterns here) and put them on display. And you will rarely see basic carved pumpkins. Some of them are actually works of art, and people put quite a few hours of work into these carvings.

Whether you are hosting or attending a Halloween party, you have to prepare some Halloween food. What I like about all house parties in the United States of America, not just Halloween parties, is how everybody that attends a party, brings a side to share. This way, people hosting the party do not have to buy a ton of food, and everybody brings what he or she likes the most, so yo are guaranteed to be able to try a lot of different foods.

Making food for the party is an experience on its own. And the hardest part of it is not the process of making it, but the process of choosing what to make. Your safest bets are different dips and Halloween cupcakes, because, let’s be honest, everybody likes those things.

Eggs with spiders, made out of olives. Looks almost too good to eat, doesn't it?

Those cupcakes were bloody delicious. Pun intended.

Choosing food for the party can be a tough decision, but not the toughest one. It is even harder to decide what costume to wear. A lot of families here decide to have a family theme, and I think this is a great idea, because it is easier to choose a costume, and you are also a part of a group. This year, me and some of my friends decide to dress up as Game of Thrones characters, since everybody I know (except me), apparently loves this show.

And how do Halloween parties in the United states look like? They usually do not happen on Halloween night, because Halloween night is time for trick or treating. They usually happen on a weekend before Halloween. It is usually just a big gathering of adults (in costumes, of course) with a lot of food and alcohol, while kids are playing in the backyard.

Trick or treating is a must - have experience on the Halloween night. Without trick or treating, you really cannot say you celebrated Halloween. It is basically just a group of kids, accompanied by adults, going around the neighbourhood, knocking on doors, shouting ‘trick or treat’ and getting candy in exchange for that. It usually lasts for one hour and a half up to two hours, depending on the neighbourhood.

My trick or treating experience this year was fun, but also kind of scary. There is a house (well, more like a mansion) in my neighbourhood that is situated far away from other houses, but me and the kids I am taking care of still decided to go there. When we got closer, we saw seven (! ) fog machines and you could barely see anything because of all the fog.

Since we could not see well, we decided to go on the porch and just knock on the door. And this is when I saw a rocking chair and a guy in a black robe, with a mask from the movie Scream on his face. I am glad I did not scream because that would freak everybody out, but this was still the most effective costume I have seen that night. And the most creepy thing - the person under the mask did not talk at all.

You do not have to participate in giving out the candy. If so, just turn all the lights off, and nobody will knock on your door, but you will most likely be labelled as a grumpy old man or woman if you do so. And do you know how much an average family spends on Halloween candy that they hand out to the kids during trick or treating? One hundred dollars! That is a lot of candy, and the kids I am taking care of, each collected four kilograms of candy during trick or treating this year!

One of the things that I find sad is that some kids do not trick or treat (just) in their neighbourhood, but they also decide to target the rich neighbourhoods, where they know they will get more candy. And some of the parents even go that far that they will drive their kids from house to house just so they can get more candy. This kinda takes away the spirit of Halloween, if you ask me.

When the kids go to high school, they are usually too old for trick or treating, but both this and last year, I spotted quite a few ‘kids’ that were clearly old enough to be in college. Well, who can resist free candy, I guess. But there is such thing as adult trick or treating - if you are that lucky person who accompanies kids while they knock on doors, people in these houses will usually offer you alcohol. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

A short conclusion

I am really glad that my job in the United states allowed me to experience this very famous American tradition. And I feel like that, even if I lived here and celebrated it every single year, I would never get tired of it!

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