We do Halloween because it's fun, mostly for kids and teenagers, but it's also a chance for adults to cut loose too. Halloween is any excuse for a party.
Speaking of "cutting loose" and "gay" stuff, for half a century Halloween in San Francisco has featured a sexual fetish party, clothing optional. The venue has changed but this year it's at what is probably the city's largest remaining "sex club" (there used to be many, gay and straight, but HIV/AIDS kind of ended that).
I actually really really love educational videos like this, there are a lot of things that us Americans do not know actually and to connect it with your country’s holidays and traditions especially with what is celebrated currently is definitely interesting and good to know!!!! I like putting these things together to make better sense of the origins 😊
It also meant light of heart, happy. I immediately think of a mother in a 1940s(?) film telling her daughter she wants to find a man who is gay for a good, lasting relationship.. Also, the book title Our Hearts Were Young And Gay. A fun book, incidently. I miss using the word as we did decades ago. Diane, using Joe's tablet.
Love how much I learned from this video! I’ve heard before that the scary faces we carve into pumpkins (or turnips back then) were meant to scare away evil spirits
The Day of the Dead is an extension of Halloween. Halloween being All Hallows or All Saints Eve and the next day being All Saints Day OR what it is called in Mexico, The Day of the Dead.
The christian angle is also why Mexico has a lot of influence over Halloween in the USA. A native celebration of dead ancestors was blended with the catholic All Saints Day into "Dia de los Muertos" and that is an increasingly big part of the decorations and festivities for Halloween in many parts of the USA.
The video is absolutely right about why the pumpkins became a symbol of Halloween. They are one of the harvest items we have available for harvest and their color is perfect.
Canadians absolutely celebrate Halloween and have done so since the late 18000's. Also, this man's accent is fairly heavily Canadian. It's been said that those from the UK and Europe have difficulty distinguishing it from the American accent. I wonder if the host of European Reacts can(?)
October 31st to November 2nd are religious days still celebrated here in the states....its said that during these days is when the veil between this world & the spirit world is the thinnest so its easier to communicate with spirits....check out the history & celebration of Dia De Los Muertos in Mexico which has a deep connection to that part of Halloween
Halloween has always meant going pumpkin picking; carving pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns (one is lit in the front of my house now); baking the pumpkin seeds (yum); dressing up in costumes, which is now my kids dressing up; Trick-or-Treating and coming home with all kinds of candy; making jelly-apples and caramel-apples; baking apple and/or pumpkin pies; visiting haunted house events, parties, and parades. I love it!
Latin Catholics, yes. We Eastern Catholics celebrate All Saints Sunday on the First Sunday after Pentecost, and we have five All Souls Saturdays in the Spring.
Same with Lutherans. How this canuck didn't express "all saints' day" even in the context of "all hallows' eve" which is just an antiquated way of saying the exact same thing, is beyond me. Must be all the maple syrup.
For me, I don’t mind your pauses. I love learning about other cultures. As well, since I’m not able to travel to other countries, it makes me feel like I’ve made a trip to Portugal. We in America do love the the kids going door to door and seeing their costumes and give out candy. We get disappointed when not many children come by.
Oh yeah we still bob for apples. lol put apples in a huge huge bucket or pot and try to get apples out with your mouth. It’s a party festival type of thing. And caramel covered apples are popular as a sweet 😊
If you watch the movie 'Meet me in St. Louis', you'll see a Halloween segment that shows how Halloween was celebrated in 1900's. Very different from these days.
He doesn’t mention that the tradition of knocking on doors and asking for Tricks or Treats actually dates back to ancient times with the Druids. I have seen multiple sources backing that claim up. Yes, it has evolved over time to what it is today, but back then it was the Druid priests and the disguised themselves to look like supernatural beings when the went knocking on those doors.
Happy Halloween Andre (though it's probably Nov. 1 now where you are). Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday! I grew up in a theatrical family in Salem, Mass (your favorite state to say, so you can say "Mass" to make it easier)... we used to do Halloween up huge in the 1970s when I was a kid. I still love it, but my nieces are all grown now, except for my grand-niece but she lives in Europe and doesn't celebrate. When she is a teenager, I'll fly her to the US for a Halloween celebration. That's what I did with her mother when she was 15 and she fell in love with the holiday. I'm older now, so for me, I'm just watching my favorite Halloween movies and eating candy corn haha!
Have you ever thought about reacting to a native American Pow Wow, Such as "Experience America’s Largest Powwow | Short Film Showcase. I think you would really enjoy this and you will learn a bit about the people that was on the land before any european ever landed on this land.
Halloween was a big deal for my family as a kid. Carving pumpkins on the kitchen floor. My mom would spread out newspaper and we just went for it. 7 kids in my family sooo. Lots of pumpkins on the front porch. We'd go "Trick or treating" and mom would have hot cider with cinnamon sticks waiting when we got home. (Drink cider and sort out candy) So much fun! Happy Halloween 🎃👻
It’s funny how you mentioned Portugal has its own version of “Halloween” cause our neighbors in Mexico has their own celebrations called “The Day of the Dead” aka Dia de los Muertos, on November 1 & 2 but it’s basically honoring the dead.
Something I think you’d like reacting to is a Cornfield pumpkin patch. It is a fall attraction that focuses on the Harvest aspect of October (and September and November, but I’ll explain why I emphasize October) that has various little seasonal activities, but two main activities are a big corn maze (literally a maze of corn), and a more family focused activity of picking out fresh pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. It’s the perfect activity that leads into Halloween because you would go there to have some fun (kinda like a seasonal carnival in a sense) and then before you leave you would go and grab a few pumpkins with your family. Then when you carve them for Halloween they would usually last just long enough to begin rotting during early November, so you would them clear your Halloween decorations and put up your Thanksgiving stuff up.
At Walmart today, there must have been a "best costume contest" in the store because there were about 5-8 adults shopping that were wearing costumes and just having a lot of fun. AND last night ( 30th) I went to play tennis with costumes and prizes.. we had a ton of fun. So, while it's usually all about kids and candy, adults do have fun with it, too.
So funny! The pumpkin picture you have for your cover picture it's the same one i used to carve my pumpkin this year. I made the one with the big smile in the top right. It came out great and is lit up with a candle on my front porch right now. Happy Halloween! 🎃
america use to really love holloween, it was a big deal till about 2015 or so, it is still done but not nearly as much as it use to be. when i was a kid. the americans carried the tradition to Holland. i remember the first year it was celebrated, the dutch had no idea what we where doing and asked.. it caught on big time with the dutch and many of them adopted it as one of their own.. the dutch are really cool people. =)
I live in Oklahoma and I enjoy your videos, you say you love America so in order to really learn of this place I think learning about the first people would be a place you should visit. Here in Oklahoma their is a large population of first people and the pow wows are open to all people so I hope you will watch a video or two about these people. They are like no other in the world and I know you will enjoy learning of a people and culture that is new and fantastic
Halloween really grew based on marketing in I think the 20's or maybe earlier. The confectioners used this "holiday" to push candy, yet I believe it is more pagan where its origin is Christian.
The giving of "treats" also has religious significance. The treats equal to offering food and gifts to dead friends and relatives to keep their souls at rest. Other offerings were made to bad spirits to keep them away.
Halloween is a religious holiday called all Hallows eve. Where you dress up so the ghosts or demons don't find you because the next day is All Saints Day if you're catholic
Carving a pumpkin came from Irish culture and Samhain. But instead of a pumpkin, since Ireland didn’t have pumpkins as pumpkins came from the Americas, it was just a large gourd.
I’m more into Dia de Los Muertos on Nov 2. It’s a Mexican celebration that has crossed over into Arizona. I set up an offrenda to remember family, friends, and pets who have passed on. There is also a large Procession (parade) that many people walk, carrying photos of loved ones. I often dress up as a Catrina with skeleton face paint and a flower wreath on my head. It’s very meaningful.
I feel like it's becoming less popular in parts of the US. I literally only saw 1 trick or treater today and a few people in mild costumes (like wearing catears or a hat).
In my experience, the concerns about safety have changed the children's activities to organized events rather than going out at night... In safe neighborhoods, I would see the carload of kids dropped off to gather candy, then get back in the car an hour or 2 later and go back to where they lived. In the small town, we raised our kids, the downtown of town ( town square) would have all the kids go from store to store to get treats and stickers. Small toys and adults get hot chocolate and other treats.
Halloween was brought to the us by irish immigrants ! Both the irish and french have celtic harvest festivals around this time of year from which the halloween tradition stems from!
The monster stuff isn’t just post war stuff like vampires and count Dracula a.k.a. Vlad III, commonly was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death in 1476/77. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania. He got the nickname from his love for impaling his enemies on stakes. Sounds familiar oh vampire and stakes. And even in the early days people thought you were vampires victim they would lock cage around your burial site so that you didn’t come back. And there’s been a lot more. Like the bells on graves in case you are get buried alive. So it’s not just a post war thing
The Chinese celebrated hungry ghost month so celebrating the dead is a very old tradition for all humans, no matter where you are in the world. Native Americans culture is very old and only past down by the elders so I wouldn’t know if they celebrated Halloween but I do know they are very honorable to their ancestors and can respect that.
I grew up in St. Louis Missouri (the intersection of the midwest and the south). It was a local tradition to tell jokes when you went trick or treating. Who ever had the best joke got extra candy. It was a huge shock when i moved away (chicago) and found out the jokes werent a huge part of trick or treating
Halloween is very complicated. It's a mixture of traditions from a lot of places around the world. I always just found it fun, dressing up as anything you wanted to. The last time I went out in costume was as a black cat. A lot of people don't celebrate the trick or treat part anymore because of child safety. Quite a few years back the malls or small town shops were frequented by trick or treaters because parents considered it safer. People also throw parties where everyone comes in costume. I think it all depends on what part of the country you live in and also whether you live in suburbia and an urban area.
Halloween used to be a holiday for both kids and adults. Up till the 1940s, Halloween was a courting holiday where young love flourished. I wish that were to come back again.
You know, he's right about pizza. When I was in Italy, everyone was perplexed about what I thought pizza was. They had something they called pizza, but it had crust on both bottom and top.
The night before Halloween Night is called Mischief Night, basically people of all ages play a joke, prank, party's, or even vandalism, it is also called the Devil's Night . A lot of times they go around bombing cars, houses, maybe even if you are outside in the wrong place at the wrong time with toilet papers or eggs, mostly it's the eggs bombing, once it dries it's hard to get off.
The three giant American holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Halloween isn’t a legal holiday (banks and government offices are not closed), but it’s still huge. Sadly, recent immigrants don’t understand Halloween and they don’t participate.
At the end of October, we in the northern hemisphere feel the nearness of death and subsequently the spirit world because things in nature are reaching the end of their life cycle all around us. As another commenter has already mentioned, Mexico celebrates "The Day of the Dead" which goes back to pre-Christian Mesoamerican culture around this time of year. The Latin American community still makes altars to honor their ancestors and beloved dead, many of them in front yards so the public can come pay their respects, in Chicago where I live. They also make skull-shaped sweets that are traditional for Day of the Dead, which may have had some influence on Halloween candy. I've been told that in Scotland and Ireland they would carve scary faces into turnips on Samhain, following the same logic as many ancient cultures that scary things would actually scare evil spirits away. They believed that since the spirits were about, they had to take protective measures against evil and unwanted spirits in addition to honoring and welcoming the spirits of the dead. When this custom came to America, pumpkins were used to carve scary faces into because they were much bigger and easier to carve. That's what I've heard, anyway. So that's an interesting example of how American Halloween is really a combination of Scottish/Irish Samhain + the Mexican Day of the Dead.
Halloween is Christmas without all the stress. You can decorate or not, and the only present(s) you have to buy is candy or inexpensive trinkets to hand out to people dressed in “costumes” who come begging at your door.
Pranks were the original antics of costumed kids-- literally, Trick or a Treat-- came about as a kind of bargain with the little devils! Pass out treats and they'll leave your footbridge alone and go pick on your neighbor! This was in my mother's era (1930's/40's). By my time (Boomer here), we roamed freely as far as our feet could take us and hauled home massive pillowcases of candies-- that pretty much lasted until Santa came! 😁
Our Zoo Animals love Halloween! They get the leftover Pumpkins from the area. When the biggest pumpkin contests are done the elephants and rhinos get to break them up and eat them!
Will and Jack were generic names for a man. Things like Jack of All Trades. We use Joe and John a bit more these days. Things like GI Joe or Johnny Come Lately. For a woman, Jane is common. Like Plain Jane and Jane Doe.
I beg to differ. Many cultures around the world believe the veil to be thinner during this time of year, allowing passed loved ones to come back and visit, such as Día de los Muertos, or needing to disguise yourself from the spirits wandering our plane for the night, as was the belief in Ireland during Samhain. I am one of many people who practice forms of divination and spiritual communication who feel more open to the other side during these few nights, and who honor ancestors at this time because tradition has it that they are currently closer to the living than usual.
Yes, Halloween is celebrated in Canada. Oh, and the "celtic" is pronounced with a hard c or k sound, like "keltik". The basketball team from Boston mispronounced the word before they knew better.
I dressed up in all red white and blue with a flashing cowboy hat. I Had fun handing out candy to the kids and had some bomb chili with cornbread. I love Halloween!
Also, yes, apparently we Americans might not have invented pizza, but apparently we made it BIG to the world. Apparently the it was considered a peasant’s food of choice before the immigrants brought it to the US. By WWII, Americans were accustomed to pizza and were asking for it while the soldiers were in Europe that it just spread like wildfire from there. My source is actually a Pizza book (I call it the Pizza bible lol) and it was actually written by two British guys. So don’t look at us Americans assuming we made this up lol, I honestly found out about this within the last 2 years.
We do Halloween because it's fun, mostly for kids and teenagers, but it's also a chance for adults to cut loose too. Halloween is any excuse for a party.
Speaking of "cutting loose" and "gay" stuff, for half a century Halloween in San Francisco has featured a sexual fetish party, clothing optional. The venue has changed but this year it's at what is probably the city's largest remaining "sex club" (there used to be many, gay and straight, but HIV/AIDS kind of ended that).
Until relatively recently "gay" meant "happy" and not homosexual.
Yes, it meant happy or bright colored.❤️✌️🌼
if you sing that one Christmas song, one of the lyrics says "merry and gay."
@@RoseNZieg "Don we now our gay apparel(sp?)
It still means that, closed-minded people can’t grasp the concept of words having more than one meaning, especially if it defines something they hate.
I actually really really love educational videos like this, there are a lot of things that us Americans do not know actually and to connect it with your country’s holidays and traditions especially with what is celebrated currently is definitely interesting and good to know!!!! I like putting these things together to make better sense of the origins 😊
Gay used to mean colorful or festive long before it became used as a word for ... What we use it for today.
It also meant light of heart, happy. I immediately think of a mother in a 1940s(?) film telling her daughter she wants to find a man who is gay for a good, lasting relationship.. Also, the book title Our Hearts Were Young And Gay. A fun book, incidently. I miss using the word as we did decades ago. Diane, using Joe's tablet.
Why the hesitation to state that it means ones sexual orientation? I'm a lesbian and find this offensive.
Love how much I learned from this video! I’ve heard before that the scary faces we carve into pumpkins (or turnips back then) were meant to scare away evil spirits
Mexico celebrates “ Day of the Dead”
Pretty cool Holiday
You should look into it
Mexico has a great culture!
Love the day of the dead festival and clothing and all the things, it’s so beautiful
This video isn’t about Mexico.
The Day of the Dead is an extension of Halloween. Halloween being All Hallows or All Saints Eve and the next day being All Saints Day OR what it is called in Mexico, The Day of the Dead.
@@IamHumanWoman sometimes it helps to give suggestions in general
The christian angle is also why Mexico has a lot of influence over Halloween in the USA. A native celebration of dead ancestors was blended with the catholic All Saints Day into "Dia de los Muertos" and that is an increasingly big part of the decorations and festivities for Halloween in many parts of the USA.
The video is absolutely right about why the pumpkins became a symbol of Halloween. They are one of the harvest items we have available for harvest and their color is perfect.
And they make much better lanterns than turnips do.
I love seeing a large pumpkin patch in the fall, it is beautiful!
turnips....
This guy has the most Canadian accent.
What's ironic about this video is the obviously Canadian guy is trying to talk about Halloween in America
Glad others noticed too. The a-boot is a dead giveaway.
He so Canadian I thought he was going to apologize for something.
Halloween is huge in Canada
Oh really? Amazing.
SO WHY NOT a video A BOOT Halloween in Canada???
Old days British carved turnips into Jack-o-lanterns.
IRISH!
When he talks about America or something being American, he's referring to both the US and Canada.
Canadians absolutely celebrate Halloween and have done so since the late 18000's. Also, this man's accent is fairly heavily Canadian. It's been said that those from the UK and Europe have difficulty distinguishing it from the American accent. I wonder if the host of European Reacts can(?)
As an Ameri...someone from the USA, I heard him say "aboot" aboot a dozen times. And "sheduled"
Aboot for about is one example.
18 thousands?
I've seen a couple of videos of this Canadian dude's fixation on American culture. Bless his heart.
October 31st to November 2nd are religious days still celebrated here in the states....its said that during these days is when the veil between this world & the spirit world is the thinnest so its easier to communicate with spirits....check out the history & celebration of Dia De Los Muertos in Mexico which has a deep connection to that part of Halloween
Halloween has always meant going pumpkin picking; carving pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns (one is lit in the front of my house now); baking the pumpkin seeds (yum); dressing up in costumes, which is now my kids dressing up; Trick-or-Treating and coming home with all kinds of candy; making jelly-apples and caramel-apples; baking apple and/or pumpkin pies; visiting haunted house events, parties, and parades. I love it!
I'm American, but wth is a jelly apple?? Lol
Catholics in America celebrate All Saint's Day on November 1. And All Soul's Day on November 2.
Latin Catholics, yes. We Eastern Catholics celebrate All Saints Sunday on the First Sunday after Pentecost, and we have five All Souls Saturdays in the Spring.
Same with Lutherans. How this canuck didn't express "all saints' day" even in the context of "all hallows' eve" which is just an antiquated way of saying the exact same thing, is beyond me. Must be all the maple syrup.
So do Episcopalians.
For me, I don’t mind your pauses. I love learning about other cultures. As well, since I’m not able to travel to other countries, it makes me feel like I’ve made a trip to Portugal. We in America do love the the kids going door to door and seeing their costumes and give out candy. We get disappointed when not many children come by.
"Aboot"!!!! 😆 🤣 😂
At that time, "gay" meant happy or festive.
I love the way this guy says the word about. Happy Halloween!
He's Canadian
Aboot 😊
Pumpkin carving started w/turnips or gourds, hallowed w/a candle inside, lit to ward off evil!!!
Is that the heaviest Canadian accent anyone has heard?? Totally OTT.
What are you talking aboot?
LOL I thought it was just my Southern ears hearing the heavy Canadian accent.
Oh yeah we still bob for apples. lol put apples in a huge huge bucket or pot and try to get apples out with your mouth. It’s a party festival type of thing. And caramel covered apples are popular as a sweet 😊
Happy Halloween, Andre! I can't wait to watch your video of your first trip to the US!
If you watch the movie 'Meet me in St. Louis', you'll see a Halloween segment that shows how Halloween was celebrated in 1900's. Very different from these days.
JJ videos are great, he's really good at explaining culture of the usa. Especially things we don't really think about
he has crazy levels of TDS though
@bleepbloop7039 I didn't know people call it that, loll
@@bleepbloop7039Hardly
He doesn’t mention that the tradition of knocking on doors and asking for Tricks or Treats actually dates back to ancient times with the Druids. I have seen multiple sources backing that claim up. Yes, it has evolved over time to what it is today, but back then it was the Druid priests and the disguised themselves to look like supernatural beings when the went knocking on those doors.
I still celebrate Halloween or sabbath or Samhain. It’s been commercialized by the Candy Companies and it’s more like a big party nowadays
I am American, 57 years old.
I still dress up
I love Halloween
Scrying has been around since Ancient Egypt, and so has almost all other forms of Divination. This guy is Canadian.
you need to look up about the gaint pumkins grown
Halloween 🎃 is a very fun celebration! It starts off the holiday season, which includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve/Day.
Happy Halloween Andre 🍬🍬🍬🎃👻
this guys Canadian accent is so funny lol Happy Halloween!
What do you think is so funny aboot it? 😅
@@paulahobbs4411 when he says ABOOT
@@paulahobbs4411 LOL the way he says about "aboot" and the way he pronounced the word "schedule" lol
@ oh no I didn’t mean Andre I meant the guy talking about Halloween he was reacting to
That’s common for Canadians.
Happy Halloween Andre (though it's probably Nov. 1 now where you are). Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday! I grew up in a theatrical family in Salem, Mass (your favorite state to say, so you can say "Mass" to make it easier)... we used to do Halloween up huge in the 1970s when I was a kid. I still love it, but my nieces are all grown now, except for my grand-niece but she lives in Europe and doesn't celebrate. When she is a teenager, I'll fly her to the US for a Halloween celebration. That's what I did with her mother when she was 15 and she fell in love with the holiday. I'm older now, so for me, I'm just watching my favorite Halloween movies and eating candy corn haha!
Have you ever thought about reacting to a native American Pow Wow, Such as "Experience America’s Largest Powwow | Short Film Showcase. I think you would really enjoy this and you will learn a bit about the people that was on the land before any european ever landed on this land.
We do Halloween because it's fun. Bottom line.
I do Halloween because of chocolate. Bottom line.
Halloween was a big deal for my family as a kid. Carving pumpkins on the kitchen floor. My mom would spread out newspaper and we just went for it. 7 kids in my family sooo. Lots of pumpkins on the front porch. We'd go "Trick or treating" and mom would have hot cider with cinnamon sticks waiting when we got home. (Drink cider and sort out candy) So much fun! Happy Halloween 🎃👻
It’s funny how you mentioned Portugal has its own version of “Halloween” cause our neighbors in Mexico has their own celebrations called “The Day of the Dead” aka Dia de los Muertos, on November 1 & 2 but it’s basically honoring the dead.
Something I think you’d like reacting to is a Cornfield pumpkin patch. It is a fall attraction that focuses on the Harvest aspect of October (and September and November, but I’ll explain why I emphasize October) that has various little seasonal activities, but two main activities are a big corn maze (literally a maze of corn), and a more family focused activity of picking out fresh pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. It’s the perfect activity that leads into Halloween because you would go there to have some fun (kinda like a seasonal carnival in a sense) and then before you leave you would go and grab a few pumpkins with your family. Then when you carve them for Halloween they would usually last just long enough to begin rotting during early November, so you would them clear your Halloween decorations and put up your Thanksgiving stuff up.
It was a spectacular night for trick-or-treat in New York tonight! Great fun to see the kids' costumes without winter coats and hats. 🎃👻🌙
At Walmart today, there must have been a "best costume contest" in the store because there were about 5-8 adults shopping that were wearing costumes and just having a lot of fun. AND last night ( 30th) I went to play tennis with costumes and prizes.. we had a ton of fun. So, while it's usually all about kids and candy, adults do have fun with it, too.
So funny! The pumpkin picture you have for your cover picture it's the same one i used to carve my pumpkin this year. I made the one with the big smile in the top right. It came out great and is lit up with a candle on my front porch right now. Happy Halloween! 🎃
If he took a test about Halloween. He would fail.
america use to really love holloween, it was a big deal till about 2015 or so, it is still done but not nearly as much as it use to be. when i was a kid. the americans carried the tradition to Holland. i remember the first year it was celebrated, the dutch had no idea what we where doing and asked.. it caught on big time with the dutch and many of them adopted it as one of their own.. the dutch are really cool people. =)
I live in Oklahoma and I enjoy your videos, you say you love America so in order to really learn of this place I think learning about the first people would be a place you should visit. Here in Oklahoma their is a large population of first people and the pow wows are open to all people so I hope you will watch a video or two about these people. They are like no other in the world and I know you will enjoy learning of a people and culture that is new and fantastic
Halloween really grew based on marketing in I think the 20's or maybe earlier. The confectioners used this "holiday" to push candy, yet I believe it is more pagan where its origin is Christian.
Just for fun, you might want to look for videos about the largest pumpkins grown in the US.
Some are big enough to turn into a canoe and paddle around them (briefly)
The giving of "treats" also has religious significance. The treats equal to offering food and gifts to dead friends and relatives to keep their souls at rest. Other offerings were made to bad spirits to keep them away.
Halloween is a religious holiday called all Hallows eve. Where you dress up so the ghosts or demons don't find you because the next day is All Saints Day if you're catholic
It’s also a Samhain tradition, costumes were worn to confuse and scare off the spirits who visit when the veil is thin so they don’t get trapped here
Great job, love this!
Carving a pumpkin came from Irish culture and Samhain. But instead of a pumpkin, since Ireland didn’t have pumpkins as pumpkins came from the Americas, it was just a large gourd.
That guy really sounds Canadian.
Because he is.
thank you for the explanation of Nov 1st. Something I did not learn :)
Canada does celebrate Halloween.
We do fun....not contacting spirits in odd ways. Different from All Souls.
Dublin, Ireland does Halloween.
I love J.J.'s videos. He has a series of American culture videos that would make great reaction videos.
I like this guy. You should do more videos by him!
I’m more into Dia de Los Muertos on Nov 2. It’s a Mexican celebration that has crossed over into Arizona. I set up an offrenda to remember family, friends, and pets who have passed on. There is also a large Procession (parade) that many people walk, carrying photos of loved ones. I often dress up as a Catrina with skeleton face paint and a flower wreath on my head. It’s very meaningful.
Happy Halloween from 🇨🇦
I feel like it's becoming less popular in parts of the US. I literally only saw 1 trick or treater today and a few people in mild costumes (like wearing catears or a hat).
In my experience, the concerns about safety have changed the children's activities to organized events rather than going out at night... In safe neighborhoods, I would see the carload of kids dropped off to gather candy, then get back in the car an hour or 2 later and go back to where they lived. In the small town, we raised our kids, the downtown of town ( town square) would have all the kids go from store to store to get treats and stickers. Small toys and adults get hot chocolate and other treats.
Halloween was brought to the us by irish immigrants ! Both the irish and french have celtic harvest festivals around this time of year from which the halloween tradition stems from!
The monster stuff isn’t just post war stuff like vampires and count Dracula a.k.a. Vlad III, commonly was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death in 1476/77. He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania. He got the nickname from his love for impaling his enemies on stakes. Sounds familiar oh vampire and stakes. And even in the early days people thought you were vampires victim they would lock cage around your burial site so that you didn’t come back. And there’s been a lot more. Like the bells on graves in case you are get buried alive. So it’s not just a post war thing
The Chinese celebrated hungry ghost month so celebrating the dead is a very old tradition for all humans, no matter where you are in the world. Native Americans culture is very old and only past down by the elders so I wouldn’t know if they celebrated Halloween but I do know they are very honorable to their ancestors and can respect that.
I grew up in St. Louis Missouri (the intersection of the midwest and the south). It was a local tradition to tell jokes when you went trick or treating. Who ever had the best joke got extra candy.
It was a huge shock when i moved away (chicago) and found out the jokes werent a huge part of trick or treating
Halloween is very complicated. It's a mixture of traditions from a lot of places around the world. I always just found it fun, dressing up as anything you wanted to. The last time I went out in costume was as a black cat. A lot of people don't celebrate the trick or treat part anymore because of child safety. Quite a few years back the malls or small town shops were frequented by trick or treaters because parents considered it safer. People also throw parties where everyone comes in costume. I think it all depends on what part of the country you live in and also whether you live in suburbia and an urban area.
Halloween used to be a holiday for both kids and adults. Up till the 1940s, Halloween was a courting holiday where young love flourished. I wish that were to come back again.
Spiritualism along with things like seances usually get popular after events after brutal wars
You know, he's right about pizza. When I was in Italy, everyone was perplexed about what I thought pizza was. They had something they called pizza, but it had crust on both bottom and top.
The night before Halloween Night is called Mischief Night, basically people of all ages play a joke, prank, party's, or even vandalism, it is also called the Devil's Night . A lot of times they go around bombing cars, houses, maybe even if you are outside in the wrong place at the wrong time with toilet papers or eggs, mostly it's the eggs bombing, once it dries it's hard to get off.
November 1 is still a holy day. 😂
Gay just means happy
That's actually the original definition of it
The three giant American holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Halloween isn’t a legal holiday (banks and government offices are not closed), but it’s still huge. Sadly, recent immigrants don’t understand Halloween and they don’t participate.
JJ's Canadian lol
The Catholic Church in America still observes November 1 we call it "All Saints' Day"
At the end of October, we in the northern hemisphere feel the nearness of death and subsequently the spirit world because things in nature are reaching the end of their life cycle all around us.
As another commenter has already mentioned, Mexico celebrates "The Day of the Dead" which goes back to pre-Christian Mesoamerican culture around this time of year. The Latin American community still makes altars to honor their ancestors and beloved dead, many of them in front yards so the public can come pay their respects, in Chicago where I live. They also make skull-shaped sweets that are traditional for Day of the Dead, which may have had some influence on Halloween candy.
I've been told that in Scotland and Ireland they would carve scary faces into turnips on Samhain, following the same logic as many ancient cultures that scary things would actually scare evil spirits away. They believed that since the spirits were about, they had to take protective measures against evil and unwanted spirits in addition to honoring and welcoming the spirits of the dead. When this custom came to America, pumpkins were used to carve scary faces into because they were much bigger and easier to carve. That's what I've heard, anyway.
So that's an interesting example of how American Halloween is really a combination of Scottish/Irish Samhain + the Mexican Day of the Dead.
Some of my best memories of Halloween were carving our pumpkin. We'd put it out on our front porch with a candle in it. My kids loved it too 🎃
We do celebrate Hallowe'en in Canada pretty much the same way as in the US
Halloween is Christmas without all the stress. You can decorate or not, and the only present(s) you have to buy is candy or inexpensive trinkets to hand out to people dressed in “costumes” who come begging at your door.
The best older movie that has Halloween as a main storyline is Meet Me In St. Louis starring Judy Garland.
Pranks were the original antics of costumed kids-- literally, Trick or a Treat-- came about as a kind of bargain with the little devils! Pass out treats and they'll leave your footbridge alone and go pick on your neighbor!
This was in my mother's era (1930's/40's).
By my time (Boomer here), we roamed freely as far as our feet could take us and hauled home massive pillowcases of candies-- that pretty much lasted until Santa came! 😁
Our Zoo Animals love Halloween! They get the leftover Pumpkins from the area. When the biggest pumpkin contests are done the elephants and rhinos get to break them up and eat them!
This is a fascinating video.
Will and Jack were generic names for a man. Things like Jack of All Trades.
We use Joe and John a bit more these days. Things like GI Joe or Johnny Come Lately.
For a woman, Jane is common. Like Plain Jane and Jane Doe.
14:10 Alberta.. Sounds like Trick or Treating is actually a Canadian tradition.
Spiritually no the connection is not any stronger than any other time of the year
I beg to differ. Many cultures around the world believe the veil to be thinner during this time of year, allowing passed loved ones to come back and visit, such as Día de los Muertos, or needing to disguise yourself from the spirits wandering our plane for the night, as was the belief in Ireland during Samhain. I am one of many people who practice forms of divination and spiritual communication who feel more open to the other side during these few nights, and who honor ancestors at this time because tradition has it that they are currently closer to the living than usual.
America is 33% Protestant and 22% Catholic.
Why would Canada not celebrate Halloween?
Well, America got tomato sauce from Italy and the noodles from China
Tomatoes are a new world fruit. The Italians got them from the Spanish, who brought them to Europe from South America.
My friend
I’m from Canada and we do celebrate Halloween too
Yes, Halloween is celebrated in Canada. Oh, and the "celtic" is pronounced with a hard c or k sound, like "keltik". The basketball team from Boston mispronounced the word before they knew better.
I dressed up in all red white and blue with a flashing cowboy hat. I Had fun handing out candy to the kids and had some bomb chili with cornbread. I love Halloween!
A pumpkin is a pumpkin but once you carve a face and put a light in it it’s then a Jack o’lantern. Don’t ask me why!
Wood is wood but when you build a table out of it it's a table.
The past is just as important as the present was it’s history
As an adult the only thing I enjoy about Halloween is the dog costumes.
A oumpkin is a pumpkin until you carve it and I becomes a Jack-O-Lantern
His pronunciation of words like "about" and "scheduled" is Canadian.
Also, yes, apparently we Americans might not have invented pizza, but apparently we made it BIG to the world. Apparently the it was considered a peasant’s food of choice before the immigrants brought it to the US. By WWII, Americans were accustomed to pizza and were asking for it while the soldiers were in Europe that it just spread like wildfire from there.
My source is actually a Pizza book (I call it the Pizza bible lol) and it was actually written by two British guys. So don’t look at us Americans assuming we made this up lol, I honestly found out about this within the last 2 years.