Halloween is a Neighborhood Holiday
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Few holidays can bring neighbors together like Halloween. Halloween is the perfect chance to meet new neighbors or reconnect with old friends around the neighborhood that you haven’t seen in awhile. Whether it’s for neighborhood decorating contests, apple bobbing, or just trick or treating Halloween activities can bring together the entire neighborhood and create a spirit of good will and camaraderie that will last throughout the year.
One of the reasons why Halloween is so good at bringing neighbors together is because Halloween has traditionally been a neighborhood event. After WWII when developers began to build subdivisions and developments of planned housing communities it became a rite of passage to go trick or treating in your neighborhood each Halloween. As recently as 2005 89% of homeowners who owned a home within a defined neighborhood planned to have candy ready for trick or treaters from the neighborhood and 93% of children who lived in a defined neighborhood planned on going to their neighbors homes to ask for treats. Many people have fond memories of running through their neighborhoods in the dark on Halloween playing pranks and begging for treats. Many neighborhoods hold organized Halloween events like hayrides, Halloween parties, and trick or treating parties where parents take turns accompanying kids around the neighborhood.
Because Halloween is a fun holiday that centers around activities it’s more social than holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving which are usually associated with formal meals and family visits. Halloween is a casual but fun holiday where strangers are welcomed into neighborhood homes and everyone is treated as a friend and given treats. Even nontraditional neighborhoods like apartment buildings or condo developments often hold Halloween parties and have set hours where kids in the buildings can knock on neighbors doors and show off their costumes. In some neighborhoods there is a lot of friendly competition to see who can come up with the scariest or most original yard and house decorations. Some neighborhood associations even hold formal contests with prizes to encourage neighbors to decorate their homes and open their homes to others to show off their decorations each year.
The roots of Halloween as a social holiday go back to the origins of the holiday as a New Year celebration. The ancient Celts celebrated Halloween as Samhain, the end of the harvest and the beginning of a new year. They believed that spirits of the dead would wander the earth on Samhain night because the veil that exists between life and death was thin at that time and the dead could return to be among the living, and possibly could bring some of the living into the realm of the dead with them. In order to fool the dead people wore masks to make themselves look dead and gathered in large open areas with bonfires to celebrate the new year and to make sure they didn’t get carried off to the realm of the dead. Halloween is at its very core a holiday to celebrate life and abundance with friends and neighbors.
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