In 19th century France, Madame goes batty for Halloween.

Goblin Day Goes Global

What’s as changeable as a costume shop and has more frequent flyer miles than a witch’s broom? Halloween, of course.

An ancient tradition that’s as new as this season’s marketing trends, the popularity of Halloween around the world is soaring. An agile shapeshifter, it both adapts to and changes the way cultures celebrate.

Halloween’s treats can be tricky!

But just when you think you’ve captured the essence of Halloween—solemn, scary, crass, or silly—it surprises you. Read on for an aha moment or two on global Halloween trends, tricks, and treats:

1. Even the “re-branding” of Halloween is ancient.

“There’s a popular misconception that Halloween is a modern American invention. Not so,” says Irish educator Brendan Smith. Its roots are firmly in Celtic culture.

But, adds Smith, modern Americans were hardly the first to “re-brand the festival. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church created the Christian festival of All Hallows’ Eve or All Souls’ Day, when people were asked to remember and pray for their dead family members. This event was superimposed onto the pagan Celtic festival of Samhain.”

Wild spectacle by theatre group Macnas is a Halloween tradition in Galway, Ireland.
© Darach Glennon/ Darachphotography

2. The first jack-o’-lanterns weren’t pumpkins.

Pumpkins are native to the Americas. So what preceded them in Halloween’s early days? To find out, let’s summon up the ghost of English folklorist Jabez Allies, who died in 1856:

“In my juvenile days I remember to have seen peasant boys . . . hollowing out a turnip, and cutting eyes, nose, and mouth therein, in the true moon-like style; and having lighted it up by inserting the stump of a candle, they used to place it upon a hedge to frighten unwary travelers in the night.”

German jack-o’-lanterns follow their own beet.
“Sugar beet lanterns” by Niklas Morberg (Flickr) CC-BY-NC-2.0

Tall tales also describe how an Irishman named Jack devised such a method to find his way back from Hell. (We won’t ask how he got there.) Hence, the jack-o’-lantern.

3.  It’s the most hygge-ful time of the year.

As Halloween spreads around the world, each culture has put its unique stamp on it. Japan has had a love-hate relationship with Halloween. Romania plays up its Transylvanian tourism at  Halloween.

In Denmark, the holiday drew little notice until 1998 when a local tabloid advertised Halloween-themed events. Today, Halloween is popular, and the Danish version is all about hygge. Loosely translated, that means “coziness.” Think candlelight, baked goods, and hot chocolate.

Carving pumpkins as a family has become so popular in Denmark that sales of pumpkins soared from 15,000 in 2001 to over 800,000 in 2015.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, a child picks a seasonal perch beside Halloween pumpkins.
© Joyce McGreevy

4. Halloween’s got a global theme song.

In 1962, there was “Monster Mash,” a novelty song that became #1 on America’s Billboard Top 100. It got banned by the BBC as “too morbid.”

Flash forward to November 14, 1983 and the premiere of a 14-minute music video: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Since then, as the Web went public and flash mob videos proliferated, “Thriller” has had a major impact on how we celebrate Halloween around the world.

In Louisiana, the Halloween Zombie Walk is a no-brainer for ghoulish fun.
Shreveport-Bossier Convention & Tourist Bureau licensed under CC BY 2.0

From  Tulsa, Oklahoma to Torrevieja, Spain; Derry, Northern Ireland to Wellington, New Zealand—even a BBC news room in London and a retirement community in Elk Grove, California—dressing up for zombie dance-offs has become a global Halloween tradition.

In Mexico City, a flash mob of 13,000 “zombies” dances to “Thriller.”

5. Halloween’s greatest superheroes are your neighbors.

On Halloween 1950, milk cartons labeled Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF gave kids the (super)power to make the world a better place.

It began as a coin drive to help kids affected by World War II. Today, young trick-or-treaters collect donations to help children in areas impacted by poverty, war, or natural disaster.

Meanwhile, a growing number of communities are marking Halloween by scaring away hunger. Across Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., Halloween food drives have become increasingly popular events.

Whether this will counter another Halloween trend—the annual spending of $350 million by U.S. pet owners on costumes for animals—remains to be seen. But it’s a move in the right direction.

A White House cat is disenchanted by its wizard costume.

My aha moment?  Halloween around the world is all about contradiction—our very human impulses to get and to give, to uphold traditions and to reinvent them, to dress up as make-believe monsters and to save humanity from real-world horrors. Oh, I see: The actual magic hides somewhere in between.

At Halloween, barriers between mortal and mythic worlds melt away.
© Darach Glennon/ Darachphotography

See last night’s frightfully fun Macnas Halloween Parade in Galway, Ireland here!

Learn more about Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF or find your local food bank here.

Learn Halloween greetings in Irish, American Sign Language, and other languages.  

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.