'Trick or Treat' – Canada is Home to the Iconic Halloween Phrase!

Tania Ceniccola

18 ott 2023Tempo di lettura: 4 min

Exploring Canadian Halloween - Customs & Traditions of The Great White North

Also in this post:

· HOW TO CARVE HALLOWEEN PUMPKINS

· 50 PRINTABLE PUMPKIN STENCILS

· HOW TO PRESERVE CARVED PUMKINS LONGER

Origins of Halloween

At Halloween in Canada, families from coast to coast come together to celebrate a Celtic festival that began around 400 BC.

The festivities most likely commemorate the end of summer and the start of a new year on the Celtic calendar. It was believed that on this day, the souls of dead relatives could mingle with mortals, so families would leave a place for them at the dinner table. To help guide these spirits to their door, they began to carve faces into turnips and potatoes and place lights inside them.

This tradition traveled to North America with Irish immigrants in the 1800s and eventually evolved into what we now recognize as Halloween.

When Halloween arrived in Canada

In Nicholas Rogers' book Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, he notes that as Irish immigrants moved to urban North America, they began to dress up for Halloween as part of humorous re-enactments. Newspapers reported sightings of fairies and witches, and in 1874, Halloween masks were already being sold in Kingston, Ontario. Grocery stores saw the opportunity and offered special seasonal nuts and candies for sale, such as chocolates, creams, and gumdrops. Pumpkins, which were traditionally harvested in the weeks prior to Halloween, were also popular among Irish immigrants, who used them as an easy-to-carve alternative to potatoes or turnips.

The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "trick or treat" is attributed to Canada, as a 1927 newspaper article in Alberta reported pranksters asking for either a "trick or treat" at homes.

Halloween in Modern Canada

Today, Halloween in Canada is celebrated with decorations, costumes, and of course, trick-or-treating, a tradition that continues to involve pumpkins, although at times, Canada's wildlife can intervene. For example, in 2014, residents of Banff, Alberta, were warned to bring their pumpkins indoors due to a grizzly bear that had been visiting local gardens in search of food.

Trick-or-treaters in modern-day Canada are less mischievous than in the past. UNICEF's 'Orange Box' campaign, which ran from 1947 until 2006, raised a staggering C$3 million a year from the spare change offered to children across Canada.

Adults continue to hand out candy to children who visit their homes, usually as a reward for their costume. According to Statistics Canada, C$80 million more candy was purchased in October 2011 than in an average month. In Ontario, some households have taken to offering something a little different than candy. The city sells heavily-discounted swimming and skating passes which are given to trick-or-treaters – an initiative that was so successful that all 1,500 passes sold out within a week in 2017, despite the city having only 7,000 children under the age of 14.

Families in Canada gear up for the event with excitement, with many adults and children dressing up in costumes. Schools often invite students to wear their costumes to class on Halloween, where several of the teachers are usually dressed up too. Canadian families have always enjoyed the same aspects of Halloween, such as collecting and hoarding candy and spending time with friends.

It is remarkable to consider how far the Celtic festival of Samhain has travelled in 2,500 years, with Canadians having made the event their own, ensuring that Halloween in Canada is a special night for families all across the country.

Want to know exactly How to Carve Halloween Pumpkins? Here’s an awesome explanatory video

This video shows you five great pumpkin related tips for you to try this Halloween. Carve your Jack-o'-lantern to another level! Includes: How to make pumpkin teeth and pumpkin fangs Carving out eyes A pumpkin mirror ball disco lantern Using a pumpkin stem for a nose Table tennis ping pong ball pumpkins, which light up! Simple to follow video tutorial with step by step guide.

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUVNHh2hkGU

NOW THAT YOU KNOW HOW TO CARVE A PUMPKIN, You’ll surely Want To “Carve Out” Some Time To Use These 50 Printable Pumpkin Stencils!

Whether you're carving a pumpkin for the first time or an old pro, these free printable pumpkin templates will give you plenty of fun ideas for your jack-o'-lantern.

Read more & Choose your Pumkin Carving Templates to DOWNLOAD for FREE at this lovely link: https://parade.com/1258420/kelseypelzer/printable-pumpkin-carving-stencils-templates/

Last but not least, NOW THAT YOU’VE CARVED YOUR PUMPKIN, read some info on HOW TO PRESERVE CARVED PUMKINS - TIPS TO MAKE THEM LAST LONGER

Halloween might be a time to celebrate spooky things, but a withered and moldy jack-o’-lantern is no fun!

Thankfully there are some simple things you can do to preserve carved pumpkins so they last as long as possible.

Just follow this detailed guide to prevent your carved pumpkins from decaying too fast, so that you don’t have to add them to your compost pile before Halloween even arrives.

Read all about it here: https://getbusygardening.com/preserving-carved-pumpkins/

I truly hope you’ve enjoyed this post and that you’ll soon experience the fun of Halloween Pumpkin Carving together with family & friends!

How will you celebrate Halloween?

Let me know in the comments,

I’d love to hear all about it!💜

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