About Halloween American-style

My new American friends have learned two more things from me in the past couple of weeks. Not that I’m on some sort of educational mission over here but I was asked the same questions umpteen times.

First of all, yes, we do celebrate Halloween in Scotland, we have for as long as I can remember, it’s a centuries-old tradition and an important date in the calendar. In fact, refer to Wikipedia and you will discover that the word Hallowe’en derives from an old Scots term for All Hallows’ Eve.

The festival was largely unheard of in America until mass Scottish and Irish immigration in the 19^th century and celebrations started to get popular in the early 20^th century.

So the answer to ‘do you celebrate Halloween in Scotland?’ was lesson one. The second came when I dressed up as the children’s character Where’s Wally (or Waldo as they say here) and was asked several times ‘do you have Where’s Waldo in Scotland?’

Yes of course, I answered, politely as ever. And if you turn to the self-same Wikipedia you’ll find out that Wally – not Waldo – was the brainchild of an illustrator from England called Martin Handford.

There was a fair amount of eyebrow-raising when people realised that a festival and a children’s character they thought were quintessentially American were actually nothing of the sort.

But even though America was late on the Halloween scene, they have more than caught up with the Celts who started it off. It’s fair to say that Americans go crazy for Halloween. The belief that everything is ‘bigger’ in the US is true in many cases, and Halloween is no exception.

This week I’ve mixed with a very cool-looking Pharrell Williams; possibly the world’s first transgender deer (ok, a doe complete with a set of antlers); Ursula from The Little Mermaid; the Jolly Green Giant; a brown bear; a hopelessly unfashionable 80s rocker; and a very excited little pumpkin.

After discarding my Where’s Wally costume, I morphed into a Scotsman. Tricky I know. But a Jimmy hat and some face paint and I looked just like Mel Gibson.

The Halloween build-up here lasted for several weeks. Children were taken on pumpkin hayrides, pop-up shops appeared selling zombie masks and all sorts of scary costumes and people of a certain vintage reminisced about the Halloween series of horror films from the 1970s – and how they weren’t really frightened when they watched them first time round.

Some folk went completely over the top of course. A neighbour a few doors down erected a giant screen on the side of his house and broadcast Star Wars movies all evening. He dressed as one of the X-Wing Fighter Pilots, handed out strips of wookie beef jerky to visiting children, and even had several rows of seats in his front garden where people could watch the films.

The big difference between the US and Scotland is the tradition here known as ‘trick or treating’. In Scotland we go out guising – from the word disguise – and I always remember having to earn my penny dainties, monkey nuts, and maybe a few coppers. If you didn’t have a song to sing or a poem to recite then you weren’t very well-received.

In America it’s all over in seconds. Trick or treat, the bag is held out, sweeties (candy) are thrown in and off they go. I far preferred the fun, and the satisfaction, of having to work for the treats.

But Halloween American style has been a lot of fun – and now a handful of folks in a corner of Arizona know that, like most things of any importance, it started in Scotland.