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HAPPY HALLOWEEN

What did one ghost say to the other ghost?"

Do you believe in people?"

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Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers?

No, they eat their fingers separately...

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What do skeletons always order at a restaurant?

Spare ribs!

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Why do we carve pumkins at Halloween?

Seven hundred thousand immigrants came to America in the 1800s from Ireland during the Potato Famine, bringing with them the traditions of Halloween and the use of Jack-O-Lanterns. Traditionally, the lantern was carved from a turnip, potato, or beet and lit with a burning lump of coal or a candle. These lanterns represented the souls of the departed loved ones and were placed in windows or set on porches to welcome the deceased. They also served as protection against malevolent sprits or goblins freed from the dead. Turnips and gourds were not as readily available in the Americas so the pumpkin was used and found to be quite an adequate replacement. The pumpkin jack-o-lantern has been an essential part of Halloween celebrations since the Victorian days and today is a universal symbol of Halloween.

A History of Trick or Treating

The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on Halloween goes back to the Middle Ages, and includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). It originated in Ireland and Britain, although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering, whining], like a beggar at Hallowmas."

Trick-or-treating is basicly begging.Yet there is no evidence that souling was ever practiced in North America, and trick-or-treating may have developed in North America independent of any Irish or British antecedent.

There is little documentation of costumes on Halloween in Ireland, the UK, or America — before 1900. The earliest known reference to ritual begging on Halloween in North America occurs in 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, near the border of upstate New York, reported that it was normal for the smaller children to go street in guise on Halloween between 6 and 7 p.m., visiting shops and neighbors to be rewarded with nuts and candies for their rhymes and songs. Another reference appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.

The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but do not depict trick-or-treating.

It does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the earliest known use in print of the term "trick or treat" appearing in 1927

Although a quarter of a million Scots-Irish immigrated to America between 1717 and 1770 and three-quartes of a million during the Irish Potato Famine in 1845–1849, ritualized begging (Trick or Treat) on Halloween was virtually unknown in America until generations later.

Trick-or-treating spread from the western United States eastward, stalled by sugar rationing that began in April 1942 during World War II and did not end until June 1947.

Early national attention to trick-or-treating was given in October 1947 issues of the children's magazines Jack and Jill and Children's Activities, and by Halloween episodes of the Jack Benny Show and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in 1948. The custom had become firmly established in popular culture by 1952, when Walt Disney portrayed it in the cartoon Trick or Treat. Ozzie and Harriet were besieged by trick-or-treaters on an episode of their television show, and UNICEF first conducted a national campaign for children to raise funds for the charity while trick-or-treating.

Happy Halloween....