Why Do We Do This? The Weird History of Halloween Traditions

Every October, perfectly reasonable adults start doing some pretty questionable things.

We carve faces into vegetables.

We hang fake dead people from our houses.

We cover perfectly clean furniture in fake cobwebs.

We dress our children like monsters and send them door-to-door demanding snacks from strangers.

Some of us even see a ghost on somebody else's porch and immediately think: I need one of those. 🤣

And somehow, none of this seems particularly strange because...

It's Halloween.

But have you ever stopped to wonder why we do any of it?

Why pumpkins? Why costumes? Why do black cats get blamed for everything?

And how exactly did we go from ancient traditions surrounding the dead to twelve-foot skeletons wearing Santa hats by November?

As it turns out, a lot of our favorite Halloween traditions have much older histories, and some are much weirder than the plastic decorations currently taking over our yards.

So let's find out how we got here.

1. Why Do We Carve Jack-o'-Lanterns?

Every October we go to a pumpkin patch or the local grocery store, find a perfectly good pumpkin, bring it home...

And carve it up.

But jack-o'-lanterns started long before pumpkins became the star of Halloween.

The tradition is tied to an old Irish folktale about Stingy Jack, a man who supposedly tricked the Devil more than once. According to the legend, when Jack died, he wasn't allowed into Heaven, and the Devil wouldn't let him into Hell either.

So instead, Jack was left wandering the darkness with nothing but a burning coal for light.

He placed the coal inside a carved-out turnip, and "Jack of the Lantern" eventually became jack-o'-lantern.

People in Ireland and parts of Britain began carving frightening faces into turnips and other root vegetables. The lanterns were associated with spirits and were sometimes used to frighten away unwanted visitors of the supernatural variety.

And if you've never seen an old carved turnip lantern...

They're horrifying. Seriously. Pumpkins are adorable compared to those things!

When Irish immigrants brought the tradition to North America, they discovered something much better suited to the job: pumpkins. They were bigger, easier to hollow out, and considerably less likely to look like a tiny possessed human head.

And thus began the Halloween tradition we know today: buying a pumpkin, performing minor surgery on it at the kitchen table, and promising ourselves that THIS year we're definitely going to roast the seeds.

2. Why Do Kids Go Door-to-Door Demanding Candy?

Imagine trying to explain trick-or-treating to someone who has never heard of Halloween.

"Okay, so after dark, we dress our children as witches, monsters, superheroes, and occasionally giant inflatable chickens. Then we send them around the neighborhood to knock on strangers' doors and ask for candy."

Like most Halloween traditions, though, trick-or-treating didn't start with miniature Snickers bars.

Long ago, celebrations connected to Samhain marked the transition from summer into the darker part of the year. Later, traditions developed in Britain and Ireland where people went from house to house asking for food.

One practice, known as souling, involved poorer people (and later children) visiting homes around All Souls' Day. In exchange for food called soul cakes, they offered prayers for the household's deceased relatives.

Another, called guising, had children dressing in costumes and visiting homes, where they might perform a song, poem, joke, or other little trick in exchange for food, fruit, coins, or treats.

So basically...

You used to have to earn the snacks.

Versions of these traditions eventually traveled to North America, where Halloween celebrations kept changing. By the early 20th century, costumed children going door-to-door had become increasingly common, and the phrase "trick or treat" began appearing in print in the 1920s.

As for the candy itself, it took over in the decades that followed. By the middle of the century, trick-or-treating had become the tradition we recognize today.

No songs required. No poems. No prayers.

Just ring the doorbell, yell "TRICK OR TREAT!", collect the goods, and move on to the next house.

Today's kids have really streamlined the process. 🤣

3. Why Do We Dress Up for Halloween?

Halloween costumes make perfect sense when you're used to them.

But once again, imagine explaining this tradition without any context:

"Once a year I put on fake teeth, cover myself in blood, and answer the door to children."

The tradition of dressing up goes back much further than the plastic masks and store-bought costumes most of us grew up with.

During the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, people believed the boundary between the living and the spirit world became thinner. Historical accounts of exactly what people wore and why vary, but disguises and masks eventually became part of seasonal traditions surrounding spirits and the dead.

Centuries later, those customs showed up again in the guising we just talked about, with children in disguise traveling from house to house. Eventually, that tradition made its way across the Atlantic and evolved into the Halloween costumes we know today.

Except we've expanded the definition of costume considerably.

Ghost? Absolutely.

Witch? Classic.

Vampire? Obviously.

A seven-foot inflatable T-Rex desperately trying to climb somebody's porch steps while carrying a plastic pumpkin bucket? Also yes.

And honestly, that's probably the best part.

For one night, nobody questions why you're wearing fairy wings at the grocery store, walking down the street dressed like a hot dog, or answering your front door looking like you were recently murdered.

Halloween basically permits everyone to be a little weird.

And frankly...

Most of us don't need much convincing.

4. How Did Black Cats Get Dragged Into Halloween?

At some point, we apparently looked at a perfectly innocent black cat and decided:

Suspicious!

Black cats have been tangled up in superstition for centuries, but their reputation hasn't always been bad.

In ancient Egypt, cats were highly respected and associated with protection and divinity. In other cultures and time periods, black cats have even been considered symbols of good luck and prosperity.

But then medieval Europe happened.

As fear surrounding witchcraft grew, cats, especially black ones, became associated with witches. Some people believed witches could transform into cats, while others believed cats served as their supernatural companions, sometimes called familiars.

And because humans are apparently very good at taking a perfectly normal animal and making things weird, the black cat's spooky reputation stuck.

Over time, witches and black cats became practically inseparable in folklore, books, movies, and eventually Halloween decorations.

Now you can't walk through a Halloween aisle without seeing at least one arched-back black cat glaring at you with big yellow eyes, judging your miniature candy bar picks.

So remember: a black cat crossing your path isn't predicting disaster.

It's just a cat going somewhere. Probably somewhere it isn't supposed to be.

Today, black cats are still one of Halloween's most recognizable symbols. Not because there's anything sinister about them, but because we gave them excellent spooky branding several hundred years ago and apparently never bothered to update the campaign.

5. Why Did Bats Become Halloween Animals?

Poor bats.

They spend all year minding their own business, eating bugs and generally being useful.

Then October arrives, and suddenly they're hanging upside down from every porch in America, looking like tiny employees of Dracula.

But bats didn't become associated with Halloween completely by accident.

Remember Samhain, that ancient Celtic festival we've already blamed for quite a bit of this? One popular theory points to the large bonfires that were part of the celebrations.

And you know what big fires attract?

Bugs.

And you know what really enjoys a convenient bug buffet?

Bats.

So bats swooping around nighttime fires may well have been a familiar sight during autumn celebrations long before anyone started selling plastic ones by the dozen.

Their nocturnal habits probably didn't help their reputation either, since bats spend their days tucked away in dark places and come flying out after sunset.

We have historically responded to animals doing perfectly normal nighttime animal things by deciding: clearly supernatural.

Then somehow vampires entered the chat.

Stories about creatures that fed on blood existed long before Dracula, but Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula helped cement the connection between vampires and bats in popular culture.

And once the movies got involved? Game over.

Dark castle. Full moon. Vampire. Bats flying dramatically across the sky.

Halloween had itself another mascot.

The funny part is that real bats are considerably more helpful than horrifying. Many species eat enormous numbers of insects, while others pollinate plants or spread seeds.

So the next time you see a bat swooping around outside, there's probably no reason to panic.

It's most likely not Dracula. It's just a tiny flying mammal doing pest control without sending you a bill.

Honestly, we should probably be nicer to them.

6. Why Do We Decorate With Ghosts & Skeletons?

At some point every October, we collectively decide our homes don't have enough dead people around them.

So out come the ghosts, the skeletons, the tombstones, and the severed limbs sticking out of the yard.

And occasionally a twelve-foot skeleton towering over the neighborhood like this is all completely normal.

But ghosts and skeletons make a lot of sense as Halloween decorations when you look at where the holiday came from.

As we now know, the ancient festival of Samhain marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, a darker time of year closely associated with death. Traditions surrounding Samhain also included beliefs that the boundary between the living and the spirit world became easier to cross.

Later, Christian observances including All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day brought their own traditions of remembering the dead.

Over centuries, historians say, all of those ideas became tangled together with folklore, ghost stories, and Halloween celebrations.

Skeletons were an obvious symbol of death.

Ghosts represented the possibility that the dead weren't quite as gone as we hoped.

And eventually we did what we always do with anything terrifying:

We made decorations out of it.

Now ghosts come in every possible variety. Scary ghosts. Cute ghosts. Inflatable ghosts. Ghosts wearing hats. Ghosts holding pumpkins.

And, apparently, porch ghosts that you see at somebody else's house and immediately decide you need one of your own.

Not that I would know anything about that. 😏🤣

Skeletons haven't escaped our nonsense either.

We pose them on porches. Put them in lawn chairs. Make them climb houses.

And thanks to giant yard skeletons, some of them don't even get put away after Halloween anymore. Come November, it's not unusual to find one still standing guard over the lawn in a Santa hat, ready for its next holiday.

At this point, we've come a very long way from ancient traditions surrounding spirits and the dead.

However, I think our ancestors would understand one thing: we have always been fascinated by what might be lurking in the dark.

We've just gotten considerably better at decorating for it.

So... Why DO We Do All This Stuff?

Turns out, most of the things we do every Halloween didn't start because somebody in the seasonal aisle at Walmart got carried away.

The pumpkins, costumes, candy, black cats, bats, ghosts, and skeletons all have histories stretching back hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of years.

Along the way, we made a few adjustments.

We traded carved turnips for pumpkins.

Songs and prayers for "TRICK OR TREAT!"

Simple disguises for inflatable dinosaurs.

Ancient fears about spirits for light-up porch ghosts with giant bows.

And somewhere along the way, a twelve-foot skeleton became a perfectly acceptable lawn decoration.

Honestly? I think that's part of what makes Halloween so much fun.

It's a weird mix of old traditions, creepy stories, ridiculous decorations, too much candy, and absolutely no requirement that any of it make sense.

So this Halloween, when you're carving a pumpkin, handing out candy, putting on a costume, or watching your neighbor add yet another skeleton to their front yard, you can at least appreciate the history behind all the weirdness.

And if you happen to see a decoration on somebody else's porch and immediately decide you need to make one yourself...

Well. Apparently that's a Halloween tradition now too.