Winners: Shark Finn, Gypsy Lady, Droppin’ and Mady
Even if Halloween is your favorite holiday and you thought you knew everything about it, you found out tonight you didn’t. Another night when the second half questions were just too tough. The result was that everyone struggled and we had an unusual 4 way tie for first. We learned that the Celts were the first to celebrate the festival of Halloween, that jack o’ lanterns originated in Ireland, and that the world’s largest pumpkin weighed about 1800 pounds.
Good thing we were celebrating Halloween and had some first class costumes. Coffee Bill came as the spittin’ image of Woody from Toy Story. Bren and Jamie made a dynamic duo as Batman and Robin. Margaret as a fierce pirate, Ellen as a gypsy fortune teller and Mistrees Daphne as Mata Hari livened things up.
Good Question: Where did Trick or Treating, also known as “guising”, originate?
Answer: United Kingdom
Halloween, one of the world’s oldest holidays, is still celebrated today in several countries around the globe. During Samhain, the Druids believed that the dead would play tricks on mankind and cause panic and destruction. They had to be appeased, so country folk would give the Druids food as they visited their homes.
The tradition of going from door to door receiving food already existed in Great Britain and Ireland in the form of souling, where children and poor people would sing and say prayers for the dead in return for cakes. Guising — children disguised in costumes going from door to door for food and coins — also predates trick or treat, and is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895, where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit and money.
While going from door to door in disguise has remained popular among Scots and Irish, the North American custom of saying “trick or treat” has recently become common. The activity is prevalent in the US, Canada, UK, Republic of Ireland, Puerto Rico, and northwestern and central Mexico. In the latter, this practice is called calaverita (Spanish for “little skull”), and instead of “trick or treat”, the children ask ¿me da mi calaverita? (“can you give me my little skull?”); where a calaveriita is a small skull made of sugar or chocolate.
The Census Bureau estimated 41 million trick-or-treaters in 2010 – children age 5 to 14 – across the United States. But only teenagers seem to come after dark anymore. Which raises the question: What’s The Age Limit On Trick Or Treating?
The more traditional believe if you’re old enough to drive, you’re too old to beg strangers for candy. And some take a hard line on the issue, with several cities in Virginia and Illinois, banning anyone 12 years old or over from trick or treating. The argument comes from a public safety perspective – the ban was a way to ensure seniors and single mothers weren’t frightened by 6-foot-tall strangers at their door on Halloween night – or by someone looking like Darin did this evening.