Trick-or-Treating… Who Needs It?
Tags: Self, Kids, Family, Creativity, Self Improvement

If the kids must trick-or-treat, they can; just do it at home.

While trick-or-treating has a few different murky possibilities of its actual origin, the modern-day version is basically all of them melted together.

We get some of it from the old Gaelic tradition of Samhain, an end-of-harvest festival that would take place between October 31-November 1. During that time, people believed the peripheral line between our world and the spirit world was lessened and the souls of the dead were easily able to cross over. Households would leave offerings outside their doors to please and pacify the dearly departed. Folks would also leave a place setting at the dining table for the unseen guests and disguise themselves as spirits or ghouls in order to blend in with the ‘visitors’.

Modern Halloween doorbell ringers also take inspiration from ‘mumming’, or ‘guising’. Mumming has been documented since the thirteenth century, but it has been traced back to ancient Egypt. Mummers, or ‘guisers’, would disguise themselves, dressing up in costume or masks pretending to be the dead spirits and excepting the offerings themselves. If that didn’t work, they would perform music and skits in the streets, sometimes going door to door begging for treats in return for their performance. There are still Mummers’ festivals and parades to this day, paying homage to the ways of the old.

‘Mumming’ back in ye olde days — Image from WikiCommons / public domain

Lastly, part of the trick-or-treating tradition nowadays stems from remnants of the old school practice of ‘souling’ on All Souls Day (which has been sort of intertwined with All Saints Day.) Souling dates back to at least the Medieval times, and maybe even before. People would bake ‘soul cakes’ with a blend of autumn spices like nutmeg and cinnamon and would sometimes fold currants into the mix. They’d mark the top of the small round cake with an ‘X’ to brand it as an offering for the dead. Children (and the poor) would go from house to house begging for the soul cakes in exchange for songs and prayers for the cake-givers’ souls, and also for the souls of givers’ deceased loved ones.

Usually, Halloween’s fairly easy. You can just walk the kids around the neighborhood and look at the cool decorations while loading up on free sugary goodness. Even if it’s still allowed in your town and some families still want to try it out, they may find lots of dark porches and locked gates because there are just not as many households this year willing to participate. Instead of doing the ‘normal’ Halloween night, shake it up a bit.

Tell them the story of the soul cakes, and make your own version of the baked treat. To make it extra special for them; instead of the traditional ‘X’ marked on top of the cake, let the kiddos carve in their initial. That’ll be sure to get them excited for when it comes out of the oven. You can find great recipes for soul cakes online.

Image from wiki commons by Malikhpur

If you’re not into the whole soul cake-making idea, you can always just get everyone involved in baking some regular cookies or cupcakes and decorate them for Halloween.

Image and treats by author

If the kids insist on going trick-or-treating, they still can. Just have them do it at home. Place a candy-filled bowl (or a person, if you have enough people) in each bedroom or bathroom and shut the doors. Each door can be a different ‘household’ with a fake address, and a lil’ drawing of a mailbox or doorknocker/bell on the outside of each door. That way, they can still do ‘door-to-door’ trick-or-treating for their candy fix. Just make sure to buy bags of the good shit or giant-sized candy bars, you know, so they don’t feel totally gypped.

Safe kids. Safe parents. Safe everyone else. Ta-da!