8.5" WROUGHT IRON PUMPKIN Halloween 3D Metal Sculpture handmade black goth RARE

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Seller: sidewaysstairsco ✉️ (1,180) 100%, Location: Santa Ana, California, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 196314602070 8.5" WROUGHT IRON PUMPKIN Halloween 3D Metal Sculpture handmade black goth RARE. Check out our store for more great used, vintage, and new items! FOR SALE: A handmade metal sculpture for Halloween or Thanksgiving 8.5" WROUGHT IRON PUMPKIN SCULPTURE DETAILS: Oh my gourd! Introducing the 8.5" Wrought Iron Pumpkin 3D Metal Sculpture, a hauntingly beautiful decorative piece and unique addition to your home decor collection! This handcrafted masterpiece features a dark, Gothic style theme with its black colored metal and skeleton frame interpretation of a classic pumpkin. Using a combination of metal cutting, punching, hand-bending, and welding techniques, this sculpture captures the traditional depiction of a pumpkin complete with its stem, leaf, and tendril, all expertly crafted from metal pieces. Strips of metal were bent to create the pumpkin shape and give the appearance of lobe sections. Standing at approximately 8-5/8" tall with a diameter of 8", this metal art piece is the perfect size to make a bold statement at your Halloween or Thanksgiving celebrations, without taking up too much space. While it may look like it's designed to hold a candle, this sculpture is purely decorative and not functional for holding any kind of flame. However, you can get creative and place a very small battery-powered light on the inner knob (shown in photos #2 & #5) or wrap battery-powered wire lights around the metal strips for a magical glowing effect. Unsure but after closer examination it appears the previous owner may have painted this metal pumpkin with black acrylic paint, altering its original appearance. Regardless, the black paint does give this decorative piece a more traditional black colored wrought iron look. The original color of the metal sculpture appears to be bronze. Suitable for both indoor and outdoor display. Ideal for your porch, foyer, dining table, coffee table, or large mantel. This metal Halloween/ Thanksgiving decoration will rust if exposed to moisture and rain but the rustic, rusted, aged look could enhance its Gothic charm and possibly make it even more exceptional. The 8.5" Wrought Iron Pumpkin 3D Metal Sculpture makes a great gift for Halloween fanatics and collectors, especially those who appreciate the darker aesthetic and everything black. This exquisite wrought iron pumpkin is a true work of art that will elevate your decor and showcase your love for all things Gothic, goth, and Halloween. A rare find! We scoured the online world in search of another 8.5" Wrought Iron Pumpkin 3D Metal Sculptur e and came up empty-handed, confirming its extreme rarity. This charming Halloween/ Thanksgiving decoration was created by hand and likely was just one of a relatively few made by the manufacturer. As stated before we believe the black paint was applied by the previous owner not the manufacturer and we kept that in mind while conducting research but still we found nothing - making this handmade holiday decorative item a rare find and consequently more collectible.  Dimensions & Weight: Height: approx. 8-5/8" (8.625 inches) Diameter: approx. 8" (8 inches) Weight: approx. 2 lbs. (2 pounds) CONDITION: In good, pre-owned condition. Bits of paint wear (scuffs, scratches, chips) throughout and some rust. Black paint does not appear to be original. Please see photos. To ensure safe delivery all items are carefully packaged before shipping out. THANK YOU FOR LOOKING. QUESTIONS? JUST ASK. *ALL PHOTOS AND TEXT ARE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF SIDEWAYS STAIRS CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.* "A pumpkin, in English-language vernacular, is a cultivated winter squash in the genus Cucurbita.[1][2] The term is most commonly applied to round, orange-colored squash varieties, though it does not possess a scientific definition and may be used in reference to many different squashes of varied appearance.[3] The use of the word "pumpkin" is thought to have originated in New England in North America, derived from a word for melon, or a native word for round. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with "squash" or "winter squash", and is commonly used for some cultivars of Cucurbita argyrosperma, Cucurbita ficifolia, Cucurbita maxima, Cucurbita moschata, and Cucurbita pepo.[1] C. pepo pumpkins are among the oldest known domesticated plants, with evidence of their cultivation dating to between 7000 BCE and 5500 BCE. Wild species of Cucurbita and the earliest domesticated species are native to North America (parts of present-day northeastern Mexico and the southern United States), but cultivars are now grown globally for culinary, decorative, and other culturally-specific purposes.[4] The pumpkin's thick shell contains edible seeds and pulp. Pumpkin pie is a traditional part of Thanksgiving meals in Canada and the United States and pumpkins are frequently used as autumnal seasonal decorations and carved as jack-o'-lanterns for decoration around Halloween. Commercially canned pumpkin purée and pie fillings are usually made of different pumpkin varieties from those intended for decorative use.[5] Etymology and terminology According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the English word pumpkin derives from the Ancient Greek word πέπων (romanized pepōn), meaning 'melon'.[6][7] Under this theory, the term transitioned through the Latin word peponem and the Middle French word pompon to the Early Modern English pompion, which was changed to pumpkin by 17th-century English colonists, shortly after encountering pumpkins upon their arrival in what is now the northeastern United States.[6] There is a proposed alternate derivation for pumpkin from the Massachusett word pôhpukun, meaning 'grows forth round'.[8] This term could have been used by the Wampanoag people (who speak the Wôpanâak dialect of Massachusett) when introducing pumpkins to English Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony, located in present-day Massachusetts.[9] (The English word squash is derived from a Massachusett word, variously transcribed as askꝏtasquash,[10] ashk8tasqash, or, in the closely related Narragansett language, askútasquash.)[11] Researchers have noted that the term pumpkin and related terms like ayote and calabaza are applied to a range of winter squash with varying size and shape.[1] The term tropical pumpkin is sometimes used for pumpkin cultivars of the species Cucurbita moschata.[12] Description Pumpkin fruits are a type of berry known as a pepo.[13] Characteristics commonly used to define pumpkin include smooth and slightly ribbed skin[14] and deep yellow to orange color,[14] although white, green, and other pumpkin colors also exist.[15] While Cucurbita pepo pumpkins generally weigh between 3 and 8 kilograms (6 and 18 lb), giant pumpkins can exceed a tonne in mass.[16][17] Most are varieties of C. maxima that were developed through the efforts of botanical societies and enthusiast farmers.[16] The largest cultivars frequently reach weights of over 34 kg (75 lb). In October 2023, the record for heaviest pumpkin was set at 1,246.9 kg (2,749 lbs.). Production Pumpkin production – 2020 (includes squash and gourds) Country     millions of tonnes  China     7.4  India     5.1  Ukraine     1.3  Russia     1.1  United States     1.1  Spain     0.8 World     28.0 Source: FAOSTAT of the United Nations[26] In 2020, world production of pumpkins (including squash and gourds) was 28 million tonnes, with China accounting for 27% of the total. Ukraine and Russia each produced about one million tonnes.[26] In the United States As one of the most popular crops in the United States, in 2017 over 680 million kilograms (1.5 billion pounds) of pumpkins were produced.[22] The top pumpkin-producing states include Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California.[4] Pumpkin is the state squash of Texas.[27] According to the Illinois Department of Agriculture, 95 percent of the U.S. crop intended for processing is grown in Illinois.[28] Indeed, 41 percent of the overall pumpkin crop for all uses originates in the state, more than five times that of the nearest competitor, California, whose pumpkin industry is centered in the San Joaquin Valley; and the majority of that comes from five counties in the central part of the state.[29] Nestlé, operating under the brand name Libby's, produces 85 percent of the processed pumpkin in the United States at their plant in Morton, Illinois. In the fall of 2009, rain in Illinois devastated the Libby's pumpkin crop, which, combined with a relatively weak 2008 crop depleting that year's reserves, resulted in a shortage affecting the entire country during the Thanksgiving holiday season.[30] Another shortage, somewhat less severe, affected the 2015 crop.[31][32] The pumpkin crop in the western United States, which constitutes approximately three to four percent of the national crop, is grown primarily for the organic market.[33] Terry County, Texas, has a substantial pumpkin industry, centered largely on miniature pumpkins.[29] Illinois farmer Sarah Frey is called "the Pumpkin Queen of America" and sells around five million pumpkins annually, predominantly for use as Jack-o-lanterns.,,,Uses Culinary See also: List of squash and pumpkin dishes Pumpkin pie is a popular way of preparing pumpkin Roasted pumpkin Most parts of the pumpkin plant are edible, including the fleshy shell, the seeds, the leaves, and the flowers. When ripe, the pumpkin can be boiled, steamed, or roasted. Shell and flesh In North America, pumpkins are part of the traditional autumn harvest, eaten roasted, as mashed pumpkin[37] and in soups and pumpkin bread. Pumpkin pie is a traditional staple of the Canadian and American Thanksgiving holidays.[38] Pumpkin purée is sometimes prepared and frozen for later use.[39] Flowers A pumpkin flower, one of the edible parts of the plant In the southwestern United States and Mexico, pumpkin and squash flowers are a popular and widely available food item. They may be used to garnish dishes, or dredged in a batter then fried in oil. Leaves Pumpkin leaves are also eaten in Zambia, where they are called chibwabwa and are boiled and cooked with groundnut paste as a side dish.[40] Seeds Main article: Pumpkin seed Pumpkin seeds, also known as pepitas, are edible and nutrient-rich. They are about 1.5 cm (0.5 in) long, flat, asymmetrically oval, light green in color and usually covered by a white husk, although some pumpkin varieties produce seeds without them. Pumpkin seeds are a popular snack that can be found hulled or semi-hulled at grocery stores. Per ounce serving, pumpkin seeds are a good source of protein, magnesium, copper and zinc.[41] Pumpkin seed oil Main article: Pumpkin seed oil Pumpkin seed oil is a thick oil pressed from roasted seeds that appears red or green in color.[42][43] When used for cooking or as a salad dressing, pumpkin seed oil is generally mixed with other oils because of its robust flavor.[44] Pumpkin seed oil contains fatty acids such as oleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid....Culture Halloween Main article: Jack o' lantern A pumpkin carved into a jack-o'-lantern for Halloween In the United States, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became an emblem of Halloween.[47] The practice of carving produce for Halloween originated from an Irish myth about a man named "Stingy Jack".[4] The practice of carving pumpkin jack-o'-lanterns for the Halloween season developed from a traditional practice in Ireland as well as Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom of carving lanterns from the turnip, mangelwurzel, or swede (rutabaga).[48][49] These vegetables continue to be popular choices today as carved lanterns in Scotland and Northern Ireland, although the British purchased a million pumpkins for Halloween in 2004 reflecting the spread of pumpkin carving in the United Kingdom.[50] Immigrants to North America began using the native pumpkins for carving, which are both readily available and much larger – making them easier to carve than turnips.[49] Not until 1837 does jack-o'-lantern appear as a term for a carved vegetable lantern,[51] and the carved pumpkin lantern association with Halloween is recorded in 1866.[52] The traditional American pumpkin used for jack-o-lanterns is the Connecticut field variety.[4][53][54][55] Kentucky field pumpkin is also among the pumpkin cultivars grown specifically for jack-o-lantern carving.[13] Chunking Pumpkin chunking is a competitive activity in which teams build various mechanical devices designed to throw a pumpkin as far as possible. Catapults, trebuchets, ballistas and air cannons are the most common mechanisms.[56] Pumpkin festivals and competitions Growers of giant pumpkins often compete to grow the most massive pumpkins. Festivals may be dedicated to the pumpkin and these competitions. In the United States, the town of Half Moon Bay, California, holds an annual Art and Pumpkin Festival, including the World Champion Pumpkin Weigh-Off.[57] The record for the world's heaviest pumpkin, 1,226 kg (2,703 lb), was established in Italy in 2021....Folklore and fiction There is a connection in folklore and popular culture between pumpkins and the supernatural, such as:     The custom of carving jack-o-lanterns from pumpkins derives from folklore about a lost soul wandering the earth.     In the fairy tale Cinderella, the fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a carriage for the title character, but at midnight it reverts to a pumpkin.     In some adaptations of Washington Irving's ghost story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman is said to use a pumpkin as a substitute head. In most folklore the carved pumpkin is meant to scare away evil spirits on All Hallows' Eve (that is, Halloween), when the dead were purported to walk the earth." (wikipedia.org) "Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil, Germany and the Philippines. It is also observed in the Dutch town of Leiden and the Australian territory of Norfolk Island. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year. Various similarly named harvest festival holidays occur throughout the world during autumn. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well. History Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among most religions after harvests and at other times of the year.[1] The Thanksgiving holiday's history in North America is rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation. It also has aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs well before the late-November date on which the modern Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated.[1][2] In the English tradition, days of thanksgiving and special thanksgiving religious services became important during the English Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII.[3] Before 1536 there were 95 Church holidays, plus 52 Sundays, when people were required to attend church and forego work. Though the 1536 reforms in the Church of England reduced the number of holidays in the liturgical calendar to 27, the Puritan party in the Anglican Church wished to eliminate all Church holidays apart from the weekly Lord's Day, including the evangelical feasts of Christmas and Easter (cf. Puritan Sabbatarianism).[3] The holidays were to be replaced by specially called Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving, in response to events that the Puritans viewed as acts of special providence. Unexpected disasters or threats of judgement from on high called for Days of Fasting.[4][3] Special blessings, viewed as coming from God, called for Days of Thanksgiving, which were observed through Christian church services and other gatherings.[3] For example, Days of Thanksgiving were called following the victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 and following the deliverance of Queen Anne in 1605.[4] An unusual annual Day of Thanksgiving began in 1606 following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and developed into Guy Fawkes Day on November 5.[4] Days of Fasting were called on account of plagues in 1604 and 1622, drought in 1611, and floods in 1613. Annual Thanksgiving prayers were dictated by the charter of English settlers upon their safe landing in America in 1619 at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia.[5] In Canada Main article: Thanksgiving (Canada) According to some historians, the first celebration of Thanksgiving in North America occurred during the 1578 voyage of Martin Frobisher from England in search of the Northwest Passage.[6] Other researchers, however, state that "there is no compelling narrative of the origins of the Canadian Thanksgiving day."[7] Antecedents for Canadian Thanksgiving are also sometimes traced to the French settlers who came to New France in the 17th century, who celebrated their successful harvests. The French settlers in the area typically had feasts at the end of the harvest season. They continued throughout the winter season, even sharing food with the indigenous peoples of the area.[8] As settlers arrived in Nova Scotia from New England after 1700, late autumn Thanksgiving celebrations became commonplace. New immigrants into the country—such as the Irish, Scottish, and Germans—also added their own traditions to the harvest celebrations. Most of the U.S. aspects of Thanksgiving (such as the turkey) were incorporated when United Empire Loyalists began to flee from the United States during and after the American Revolution and settled in Canada.[8] In 1859, the government of the Provinces of Canada declared a Thanksgiving Day in which "all Canadians [were asked] to spend the holiday in 'public and solemn' recognition of God's mercies."[9] On 9 October 1879, Canada's Governor General, the Marquis of Lorne, declared November 6 as "a day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed."[9] The Canadian Parliament on 31 January 1957 applied the same language in its proclamation for the modern holiday: "A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed—to be observed on the second Monday in October."[10] In the United States Main article: Thanksgiving (United States) An annual thanksgiving holiday tradition in North American colonies is documented for the first time in 1619, in what is now called the Commonwealth of Virginia. Thirty-eight English settlers aboard the ship Margaret arrived by way of the James River at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia on December 4, 1619. The landing was immediately followed by a religious celebration, specifically dictated by the group's charter from the London Company. The charter declared, "that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantation in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."[11][5] Since the mid 20th century, the original celebration has been commemorated there annually at present-day Berkeley Plantation, ancestral home of the Harrison family of Virginia.[12] The more familiar Thanksgiving precedent accompanied by feasting is traced to the Pilgrims and Puritans who emigrated from England in the 1620s and 1630s. They brought their previous tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. The 1621 Plymouth, Massachusetts thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. The Pilgrims celebrated this with the Wampanoags, a tribe of Native Americans who, along with the last surviving Patuxet, had helped them get through the previous winter by giving them food in that time of scarcity, in exchange for an alliance and protection against the rival Narragansett tribe.[13] Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.[14][15] According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden.[16] Now called 3 Oktoberfeest, Leiden's autumn thanksgiving celebration in 1617 was the occasion for sectarian disturbance that appears to have accelerated the pilgrims' plans to emigrate to America.[17] Later in New England, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planned the Plymouth colony's thanksgiving celebration and feast in 1623.[18][19][20] Bradford issued a proclamation of Thanksgiving following victory in the Pequot War in the late 1630s to celebrate "the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won."[21][22] The practice of holding an annual thanksgiving harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.[23] Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, and conversely by patriot leaders, such as John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress,[24] each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes.[25] As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God",[26] and calling on Americans to "unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions." Debate over first celebrations Devotees in New England, Virginia and other places have maintained contradictory claims to having held the first Thanksgiving celebration in what became the United States. The question is complicated by the concept of Thanksgiving as either a holiday celebration or a religious service. James Baker maintains, "The American holiday's true origin was the New England Calvinist Thanksgiving. Never coupled with a Sabbath meeting, the Puritan observances were special days set aside during the week for thanksgiving and praise in response to God's providence."[14] Baker calls the debate a "tempest in a beanpot" and "marvelous nonsense" based on regional claims.[14] In 1963, President John F. Kennedy acknowledged both the Virginia and Massachusetts claims. Kennedy issued Proclamation 3560 on November 5, 1963, stating, "Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together, and for the faith which united them with their God."[28] Other claims include an earlier religious service by Spanish explorers at San Elizario in Texas in 1598.[29] Historians Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon of the University of Florida argue that the earliest Thanksgiving service in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish community on September 8, 1565, in current Saint Augustine, Florida.[30][31] Fixing a date Canada The earlier Thanksgiving celebrations in Canada has been attributed to the earlier onset of winter in the North, thus ending the harvest season earlier.[32] Thanksgiving in Canada did not have a fixed date until the late 19th century. Prior to Canadian Confederation, many of the individual colonial governors of the Canadian provinces had declared their own days of Thanksgiving. The first official Canadian Thanksgiving occurred on April 15, 1872, when the nation was celebrating the Prince of Wales' recovery from a serious illness.[32] By the end of the 19th century, Thanksgiving Day was normally celebrated on November 6 (see also Guy Fawkes Night discussed above). In the late 19th century, the militia staged "sham battles" for public entertainment on Thanksgiving Day. The militia agitated for an earlier date for the holiday, so they could use the warmer weather to draw bigger crowds.[33] However, when the First World War ended, the Armistice Day holiday was usually held during the same week. To prevent the two holidays from clashing with one another, in 1957 the Canadian Parliament proclaimed Thanksgiving to be observed on its present date on the second Monday of October.[8] United States Thanksgiving in the United States has been observed on differing dates. From the time of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln, the date of observance varied from state to state. The final Thursday in November had become the customary date in most U.S. states by the beginning of the 19th century, coinciding with, and eventually superseding the holiday of Evacuation Day (commemorating the day the British exited the United States after the Revolutionary War).[34] Modern Thanksgiving was proclaimed for all states in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. Influenced by New Englander Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote letters to politicians for approximately 40 years advocating an official holiday, Lincoln set national Thanksgiving by proclamation for the final Thursday in November in celebration of the bounties that had continued to fall on the Union and for the military successes in the war, also calling on the American people, "with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience .. fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation..."[35] Because of the ongoing Civil War, a nationwide Thanksgiving celebration was not realized until Reconstruction was completed in the 1870s. On October 31, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a presidential proclamation changing the holiday to the next to last Thursday in November in an effort to boost the economy.[36] The earlier date created an extra seven days for Christmas shopping since at that time retailers never began promoting the Christmas season until after Thanksgiving. But making the proclamation so close to the change wreaked havoc on the holiday schedules of many people, schools, and businesses, and most Americans were not in favor of the change. Some of those who opposed the change dubbed the holiday "Franksgiving" that year. Some state governors went along with the change while others stuck with the original November 30 date for the holiday, and three states — Colorado, Mississippi, and Texas — observed both dates.[37] The double Thanksgiving continued for two more years, and then on December 26, 1941, Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing the official national Thanksgiving Day to the fourth Thursday in November starting in 1942 (there are usually four but sometimes five Thursdays in November, depending on the year).[38] Since 1971, when the American Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect, the American observance of Columbus Day has coincided with the Canadian observance of Thanksgiving. Observance Australia In the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the last Wednesday of November, similar to the pre–World War II American observance on the last Thursday of the month. Due to the time difference of between 14 and 17 hours, this means the Norfolk Island observance is two days before or five days after the United States' observance. The holiday was brought to the island by visiting American whaling ships.[41] Brazil In Brazil, National Thanksgiving Day was instituted by President Gaspar Dutra, through Law 781 of August 17, 1949, at the suggestion of Ambassador Joaquim Nabuco, who was enthusiastic about the commemorations he saw in 1909 in St. Patrick's Cathedral as an ambassador in Washington. In 1966, Law 5110 established that the Thanksgiving celebration would take place on the fourth Thursday of November.[42] This date is celebrated by many families of American origin, by some Protestant Christian denominations, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil (which is of American origin), the Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church, and the Church of the Nazarene, and Methodist denominational universities. The day is also celebrated by evangelical churches such as the Foursquare Gospel Church in Brazil. Canada Main article: Thanksgiving (Canada) Pumpkin pie, commonly served at Thanksgiving in North America Thanksgiving (French: l'Action de grâce), occurring on the second Monday in October, is an annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season. Although the original act of Parliament references God and the holiday is celebrated in churches, the holiday is mostly celebrated in a secular manner. Thanksgiving is a statutory holiday in all provinces in Canada, except for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. While businesses may remain open in these provinces, the holiday is nonetheless recognized and celebrated regardless of its status.[43][44][45][46][47] Germany The Harvest Thanksgiving Festival, Erntedankfest, is a popular Christian festival in some German municipalities on the first Sunday of October. The festival has a significant religious component, and many churches are decorated with autumn crops. In some places, there are religious processions or parades. Liberia In the West African country of Liberia, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the first Thursday of November.[48] In 1883, the Legislature of Liberia enacted a statute declaring this day as a national holiday.[49] Thanksgiving is celebrated in the country in large part due to the nation's founding as a colony of the American Colonization Society in 1821 by former slaves and free people of color from the United States. However, the Liberian celebration of the holiday is notably different from the American celebration. While some Liberian families chose to celebrate with a feast or cook out, it is not considered a staple of the holiday and there is no specific food heavily associated with Thanksgiving. Some chose to celebrate the holiday by attending religious ceremonies, while others take it as a day for relaxation. Others view the holiday as an imposition from the American settlers of the country. In the years following the second civil war, some Liberians have taken the holiday as a time to be thankful for this new period peace and relative stability.[50][51] Netherlands Many of the Pilgrims who migrated to the Plymouth Plantation resided in Leiden from 1609 to 1620, and had recorded their births, marriages, and deaths at the Pieterskerk. In commemoration, a non-denominational Thanksgiving Day service is held each year on the morning of the American Thanksgiving Day in the Pieterskerk, a Gothic church in Leiden, noting the hospitality the Pilgrims received in Leiden on their way to the New World.[52] Thanksgiving is observed by orthodox Protestant churches in the Netherlands on the first Wednesday in November (Dankdag [nl]). It is not a public holiday. Those who observe the day either go to church in the evening or take the day off and go to church in the morning (and occasionally afternoon) too. Philippines An American colony until the first half of the 20th century, the Philippines celebrated Thanksgiving as a special public holiday on the same day as the Americans.[53] During the Japanese occupation during World War II, both the Americans and Filipinos celebrated Thanksgiving in secret. After Japanese withdrawal in 1945, the tradition continued until 1969. It was revived by President Ferdinand Marcos, but the date was changed to be on every September 21, when martial law was imposed in the country. After Marcos' ouster in 1986, the tradition was no longer continued, due to the controversial events that occurred during his long administration.[54] As of 2022, Thanksgiving has been revived as a commercial and cultural holiday, albeit stripped of its official status. SM Supermalls led the way in the slow revival of Thanksgiving Day on the same day as in the U.S., as in the old days. Many malls and hotels offer special sales on this day, which is part of the long celebration of Christmas in the Philippines, which begins in September (unlike on Black Friday in the United States). Rwanda Main article: Public holidays in Rwanda In Rwanda, Umuganura Day is celebrated as Thanksgiving festival to mark the start of the country's harvest on the first Friday of August.[55] Saint Lucia The nation of Saint Lucia celebrates Thanksgiving on the first Monday in October.[56] United Kingdom The Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving does not have an official date in the United Kingdom; however, it is traditionally held on or near the Sunday of the harvest moon that occurs closest to the autumnal equinox. Harvest Thanksgiving in Britain also has pre-Christian roots when the Saxons would offer the first sheaf of barley, oats, or wheat to fertility gods. When the harvest was finally collected, communities would come together for a harvest supper.[57] When Christianity arrived in Britain many traditions remained, and today the Harvest Festival is marked by churches and schools in late September/early October (same as Canada) with singing, praying and decorating with baskets of food and fruit to celebrate a successful harvest and to give thanks.[58] Collections of food are usually held which are then given to local charities which help the homeless and those in need. United States Main article: Thanksgiving (United States) In the United States, Thanksgiving is an annual tradition that was federally formalized by an 1863 by presidential proclamation by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, but was implemented as state legislation since the nation's founding. In 1941, federal legislation by the United States Congress formalized Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November. The holiday traditionally has been a celebration of the blessings of the year, including the harvest.[59] On Thanksgiving Day, it is common for Americans to share a family meal, attend church services, and view special sporting events.[60] Thanksgiving is celebrated in public places with parades such as Macy's Thanksgiving Parade[61] in New York City, ABC Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade[62] in Philadelphia, America's Hometown Thanksgiving Parade in Plymouth, Massachusetts, McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade in Chicago, and Bayou Classic Thanksgiving Parade[63] in New Orleans. W hat Americans call the "Holiday Season" generally begins with Thanksgiving.[64] The first day after Thanksgiving Day—Black Friday—marks the start of the Christmas shopping season.[65] Thanksgiving is usually celebrated with a family meal. Beginning in the 2010s, a new tradition has emerged to also celebrate Thanksgiving with a meal with friends, as a separate event on a different day or an alternate event on Thanksgiving Day. This is referred to as Friendsgiving. Similarly named holidays See also: List of harvest festivals Grenada In the West Indian island of Grenada, in the Caribbean, there is a national holiday known as Thanksgiving Day which is celebrated on October 25. Even though it bears the same name, and is celebrated at roughly the same time as the American and Canadian versions of Thanksgiving, this holiday is unrelated to either of those celebrations. Instead, the holiday marks the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of the island in 1983, in response to the deposition and execution of the socialist Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop[67] by a military government from within his own party. Japan Main article: Labor Thanksgiving Day Labor Thanksgiving Day (勤労感謝の日, Kinrō Kansha no Hi) is a national holiday in Japan. It takes place annually on November 23. The law establishing the holiday, which was adopted during the American occupation after World War II, cites it as an occasion for commemorating labor and production and giving each other thanks. It has roots in the ancient Shinto harvest ceremony (Niiname-sai (新嘗祭))." (wikipedia.org) "The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade in New York City presented by the U.S.-based department store chain Macy's. The parade first took place in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States;[a] it has been held every year since except from 1942 through 1944. Its signature giant helium balloons date to 1928, with smaller air-filled balloons having been used in 1927. The three-hour parade is held in Manhattan, ending outside Macy's Herald Square, and takes place from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Thanksgiving Day, and has been televised nationally on NBC since 1953....Television coverage Tom the Turkey and Underdog arriving at Macy's Herald Square during the 1979 edition of the parade. More than 44 million people typically watch the parade on television on an annual basis. It was first televised locally in New York City in 1939 as an experimental broadcast on NBC's W2XBS (now WNBC).[45] No television stations broadcast the parade in 1940 or 1941, but local broadcasts resumed when the parade returned in 1945 after the wartime suspension.[46][47] The parade began its network television appearances on CBS in 1948, the year that major, regular television network programming began.[48][49] NBC has been the official broadcaster of the event since 1953. However, CBS (which has a studio in Times Square) also carries unauthorized coverage as The Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS.[50] The parade committee can endorse an official broadcaster as the parade takes place in public (however, they cannot award exclusive rights as other events, such as sporting events, which take place inside restricted-access stadiums, have the authority to do so). The rerouting of the parade starting from 2012 (see below) moved the parade out of the view of CBS's cameras and thus made it significantly more difficult for the network to cover the parade. However, the route now passes along the west side of the network's Black Rock headquarters building along Sixth Avenue (with the hosts stationed on a temporary tower platform at the Sixth/W. 53rd St. corner of the building), and CBS nevertheless continues to cover the parade as before. Since 2003, the parade has been broadcast in Spanish on the sister network of NBCUniversal (Telemundo) hosted by María Celeste Arrarás from 2003 to 2006. The parade won nine Emmy Awards for outstanding achievements in special event coverage since 1979. Since 2020, the parade also provided audio description via a second audio program channel.[51] At first, the telecasts were only an hour long. The telecast then expanded to two hours in 1961,[52] reduced to 90 minutes in 1962, reverted to two hours in 1965, and expanded to all three hours of the parade in 1969.[53] The event began to be broadcast in color in 1960.[54] NBC airs the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade live in the Eastern Time Zone as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as the network uses broadcast feeds from that time zone (which due to time differences starts at 10:00 a.m. AST), but tape delays the telecast elsewhere in the continental U.S. and territories from the Central Time Zone westward to allow the program to air in the same 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. timeslot across its owned-and-operated and affiliated stations (except for Guam, which airs it the day after Thanksgiving at 9:00 a.m. local time, as the territory is located west of the International Date Line and therefore a day ahead from the rest of the United States); since the morning program's expansion to three hours in 2000 (it eventually expanded to four hours in 2007), NBC's Today only airs for two hours on Thanksgiving morning, pre-empting the last two talk-focused hours of the show for the day until 2022. Beginning in 2023 with the parade coverage beginning a half hour earlier, Today now broadcasts for 90 minutes that day (similar to its Saturday broadcasts). NBC began airing a same-day afternoon rebroadcast of the parade in 2009 (replacing the annual broadcast of Miracle on 34th Street, which NBC had lost the broadcast television rights to that year). CBS's unauthorized coverage airs live in most time zones, allowing viewers to see the parade as much as two hours before the official NBC coverage airs in their area; CBS still broadcasts the parade on delay on the West Coast, immediately after the Detroit Lions Thanksgiving game in even-numbered years when CBS carries it, or at 9:00 a.m. local time in odd-numbered years when they carry the Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game.[50] From 1963 to 1972, NBC's coverage was hosted by Lorne Greene (who was then appearing on NBC's Bonanza) and Betty White. David Hartman and Karen Grassle hosted the parade in 1974, With Ed McMahon serving as a man on the street host, He would become a main host in 1977, until 1981. Since 1982, NBC has appointed at least one of the hosts of Today to emcee the television broadcast, starting with Bryant Gumbel, who hosted the parade until 1984. From 1987 to 1997, NBC's coverage was hosted by longtime Today weather anchor Willard Scott. During that period, their co-hosts included Mary Hart, Sandy Duncan, and Today colleagues Deborah Norville and Katie Couric. In recent years, NBC's coverage has been hosted by Today anchors Matt Lauer (from 1998 to 2017), Meredith Vieira (from 2006 to 2010), Ann Curry (2011), Savannah Guthrie (since 2012) and Hoda Kotb (since 2018) as well as Today weather anchor Al Roker who usually joins the producers of the parade or the CEO of Macy's and special guests in the ribbon cutting ceremony. In 2022, Dylan Dreyer filled in for Roker, who was recovering due to health complications involving blood clots,[55] while Kotb hosted the ribbon cutting ceremony segment when the parade reached Herald Square, rather than when it usually takes place in the Upper West Side. From the early 1970s until 1993, the television broadcast was produced and directed by Dick Schneider; since 1994, it has been executive produced by Brad Lachman (who has otherwise been known for producing reality television series), produced by Bill Bracken and directed by veteran sitcom director Gary Halvorson. Announcements during the telecast were first provided by Bill McCord, then followed in succession by Bill Wendell, Lynda Lopez (the telecast's only female announcer), and longtime Saturday Night Live and NBC staff announcer Don Pardo; from circa 2000 to 2010, announcer duties were helmed by Joel Godard (who also served as the announcer for Late Night with Conan O'Brien for much of that period), and then were assumed by Today announcer Les Marshak with the 2011 telecast. Milton DeLugg served as the telecast's music director until his death in 2015. CBS's coverage was originally part of the All-American Thanksgiving Day Parade, a broadcast that included footage from multiple parades across North America, including parades at Detroit, Philadelphia and Disneyland (the latter was later replaced by Opryland USA in 1997 and after that Miami Beach), and taped footage of the Toronto Santa Claus Parade (taped usually the second or third weekend of November) and the Aloha Floral Parade in Honolulu (which usually took place in September). Beginning in 2004, however, CBS has focused exclusively on the Macy's parade, but avoids using the Macy's name due to the lack of an official license. To compensate for the fact that the Broadway and music performances can only appear on NBC, CBS adds their own pre-recorded performances (also including Broadway shows, although different from the ones that are part of the official parade and recorded off-site) to fill out the special.[56] With the lack of a live parade for 2020, CBS aired The CBS Thanksgiving Day Celebration—which was hosted by Kevin Frazier and Keltie Knight of Entertainment Tonight, and featured highlights and new performances.[57] For the 1997 parade, MTV guest reporters, Beavis and Butt-head, with host Kurt Loder, provided their usual style of commentary on aspects of the parade, and of their take on Thanksgiving in general. The special, titled Beavis and Butt-head Do Thanksgiving, included a balloon of Beavis and Butt-head spectating from their couch. The balloon was not participating in the parade, but stationed on top of a building alongside the parade route. Radio coverage is provided by Audacy's WINS (1010 AM) in New York City. It is one of the few times throughout the year in which that station breaks away from its all-news radio format. From 2016 to 2019, Verizon produced a 360-degree virtual reality live telecast of the parade, with minimal commentary, made available through YouTube.[58] The 2019 edition, produced in cooperation with NBC, had more extensive production, adding hosts Terry Crews, Lilly Singh and Ross Matthews, also adding "virtual balloons" generated through viewers' votes.[59] Verizon's simulcast of the 2020 event ran in a traditional flat, single-perspective format, and was the very first to be broadcast internationally, not just in the United States, thru Verizon's and Macy's YouTube and Twitter handles. Verizon did not simulcast the 2021 event in either format. The first live international broadcast of the parade occurred in 2020, when Philippine cable television channel TAP TV became the first foreign-based broadcaster to air the parade's live telecast. Before that, the broadcasts were delayed and aired on Black Friday on what is now CNN Philippines until 2013. In addition, delayed broadcasts are aired to United States military installations overseas thru American Forces Network hours following the original U.S. broadcast....In popular culture     The 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street, begins with the parade, as do most of its remakes. The film portrays the real Santa Claus being hired to work at Macy's after its own Santa impersonator gets drunk during the parade. NBC, in its telecasts, often showed the original 1947 film on Thanksgiving afternoon, following its coverage of the parade and the National Dog Show.     The 1984 film Broadway Danny Rose features a sequence in which Danny (Woody Allen) and Tina (Mia Farrow) are chased into a warehouse containing Parade materials and helium gas supplies; near the end of the film Tina is at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade itself. At the 1982 Parade, in which Sammy Davis, Jr. is briefly seen, Milton Berle, who has a small guest role in the film playing himself, was also featured in the parade but is not seen in this sequence.     The parade is featured in the 1987 children's book We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story and its animated film adaptation where Rex mistakenly befriends a dinosaur balloon.     In the 1994 Seinfeld episode "The Mom and Pop Store", Elaine wins a spot on the parade route for her boss, Mr. Pitt, to hold the Woody Woodpecker balloon.     The first Thanksgiving-themed episode of Friends centered on the accidental release of the (unused at the time) "Underdog" balloon.     "Macy's Day Parade" is a song by Green Day, on their album Warning.     In 2008, a Coca-Cola CGI ad aired in the United States during Super Bowl XLII. The commercial's plot centered around Underdog and fictional Stewie Griffin balloons chasing a Coke bottle-shaped balloon through New York City. The spot ended with a Charlie Brown balloon holding the Coke balloon. The advertisement won a Silver Lion Award at the annual Lions International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France, that year, and the clip of the commercial with the Griffin balloon was featured in a Macy's commercial in October 2008 (along with clips from Miracle on 34th Street, I Love Lucy, Seinfeld and other media where Macy's was mentioned). The commercial was also referenced in a 2011 episode of Family Guy. Stewie, one of its main characters, is seen watching the parade only to see the balloon of himself in the parade.     In the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters, the Ghostbusters fight a haunted balloon parade including several Macy's balloons from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s." (wikipedia.org) "A harvest festival is an annual celebration that occurs around the time of the main harvest of a given region. Given the differences in climate and crops around the world, harvest festivals can be found at various times at different places. Harvest festivals typically feature feasting, both family and public, with foods that are drawn from crops. In Britain, thanks have been given for successful harvests since pagan times. Harvest festivals are held in September or October depending on local tradition. The modern Harvest Festival celebrations include singing hymns, praying, and decorating churches with baskets of fruit and food in the festival known as Harvest Festival, Harvest Home, Harvest Thanksgiving or Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving. In British and English-Caribbean churches, chapels and schools, and some Canadian churches, people bring in produce from the garden, the allotment or farm. The food is often distributed among the poor and senior citizens of the local community or used to raise funds for the church, or charity. Harvest festivals in Asia include the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節), one of the most widely spread harvest festivals in the world. In Iran Mehrgan was celebrated in an extravagant style at Persepolis. Not only was it the time for harvest, but it was also the time when the taxes were collected. Visitors from different parts of the Persian Empire brought gifts for the king, all contributing to a lively festival. In India, Makar Sankranti, Thai Pongal, Uttarayana, Lohri, and Magh Bihu or Bhogali Bihu in January, Holi in February–March, Vaisakhi in April and Onam in August–September are a few important harvest festivals. Jews celebrate the week-long harvest festival of Sukkot in the autumn. Observant Jews build a temporary hut or shack called a sukkah, and spend the week living, eating, sleeping, and praying inside it. A sukkah has three walls and a semi-open roof, designed to allow the elements to enter. It is reminiscent of the tabernacles Israelite farmers would live in during the harvest, at the end of which they would bring a portion of the harvest to the Temple in Jerusalem. Customs and traditions in English-speaking world An early harvest festival used to be celebrated at the beginning of the harvest season on 1 August and was called Lammas, meaning 'loaf Mass'. The Latin prayer to hallow the bread is given in the Durham Ritual. Farmers made loaves of bread from the fresh wheat crop. These were given to the local church as the Communion bread during a special service thanking God for the harvest. By the sixteenth century, several customs seem to have been firmly established around the gathering of the final harvest. They include the reapers accompanying a fully laden cart; a tradition of shouting "Hooky, hooky"; and one of the foremost reapers dressing extravagantly, acting as 'lord' of the harvest and asking for money from the onlookers. A play by Thomas Nashe, Summer's Last Will and Testament, (first published in London in 1600 but believed from internal evidence to have been first performed in October 1592 at Croydon) contains a scene which demonstrates several of these features. There is a character personifying harvest who comes on stage attended by men dressed as reapers; he refers to himself as their "master" and ends the scene by begging the audience for a "largesse". The scene is inspired by contemporary harvest celebrations, and singing and drinking feature largely. The stage instruction reads:     "Enter Harvest with a scythe on his neck, and all his reapers with sickles, and a great black bowl with a posset in it borne before him: they come in singing." The song which follows may be an actual harvest song or a creation of the author's intended to represent a typical harvest song of the time:     Merry, merry, merry, cheery, cheery, cheery,     Trowel the black bowl to me;     Hey derry, derry, with a pop and a lorry,     I'll throw it again to thee;     Hooky, hooky, we have shorn,     And we have bound,     And we have brought Harvest     Townhome. The shout of "hooky, hooky" appears to be one traditionally associated with the harvest celebration. The last verse is repeated in full after the character Harvest remarks to the audience "Is your throat clear to help us sing hooky, hooky?" and a stage direction adds, "Heere they all sing after him". Also, in 1555 in Archbishop Parker's translation of Psalm 126 occur the lines:     "He home returnes: wyth hocky cry,     With sheaues full lade abundantly." In some parts of England "Hockey" or "Horkey" (the word is spelled variously) became the accepted name of the actual festival itself:     "Hockey is brought Home with hallowing     Boys with plum-cake The Cart following". Another widespread tradition was the distribution of a special cake to the celebrating farmworkers. A prose work of 1613 refers to the practice as predating the Reformation. Describing the character of a typical farmer, it says:     "Rocke Munday..Christmas Eve, the hoky, or seed cake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of popery."[1] Early English settlers took the idea of harvest thanksgiving to North America. The most famous one is the harvest Thanksgiving held by the Pilgrims in 1621. Nowadays the festival is held at the end of harvest, which varies in different parts of Britain. Sometimes neighboring churches will set the Harvest Festival on different Sundays so that people can attend each other's thanksgiving. Until the 20th century, most farmers celebrated the end of the harvest with a big meal called the harvest supper, to which all who had helped in the harvest were invited. It was sometimes known as a "Mell-supper", after the last patch of corn or wheat standing in the fields which were known as the "Mell" or "Neck". Cutting it signified the end of the work of harvest and the beginning of the feast. There seems to have been a feeling that it was bad luck to be the person to cut the last stand of corn. The farmer and his workers would race against the harvesters on other farms to be first to complete the harvest, shouting to announce they had finished. In some counties, the last stand of corn would be cut by the workers throwing their sickles at it until it was all down, in others the reapers would take it in turns to be blindfolded and sweep a scythe to and fro until all of the Mell was cut down. Some churches and villages still have a Harvest Supper. The modern British tradition of celebrating the Harvest Festival in churches began in 1843, when the Reverend Robert Hawker invited parishioners to a special thanksgiving service at his church at Morwenstow in Cornwall. Victorian hymns such as Come, ye thankful people, come and All things bright and beautiful but also Dutch and German harvest hymns in translation (for example, We plough the fields and scatter) helped popularise his idea of a harvest festival, and spread the annual custom of decorating churches with home-grown produce for the Harvest Festival service. On 8 September 1854 the Revd Dr William Beal, Rector of Brooke, Norfolk,[2] held a Harvest Festival aimed at ending what he saw as disgraceful scenes at the end of harvest,[3] and went on to promote 'harvest homes' in other Norfolk villages. Another early adopter of the custom as an organized part of the Church of England calendar was Rev Piers Claughton at Elton, Huntingdonshire in or about 1854.[4] As British people have come to rely less heavily on home-grown produce, there has been a shift in emphasis in many Harvest Festival celebrations. Increasingly, churches have linked Harvest with an awareness of and concern for people in the developing world for whom growing crops of sufficient quality and quantity remains a struggle. Development and Relief organizations often produce resources for use in churches at harvest time which promote their own concerns for those in need across the globe. In the early days, there were ceremonies and rituals at the beginning as well as at the end of the harvest. Encyclopædia Britannica traces the origins to "the animistic belief in the corn [grain] spirit or corn mother." In some regions the farmers believed that a spirit resided in the last sheaf of grain to be harvested. To chase out the spirit, they beat the grain to the ground. Elsewhere they wove some blades of the cereal into a "corn dolly" that they kept safe for "luck" until seed-sowing the following year.[citation needed] Then they plowed the ears of grain back into the soil in hopes that this would bless the new crop.     Church bells could be heard on each day of the harvest.     A corn dolly was made from the last sheaf of corn harvested. The corn dolly often had a place of honour at the banquet table, and was kept until the following spring.     In Cornwall, the ceremony of Crying The Neck was practiced. Today it is still re-enacted annually by The Old Cornwall Society.     The horse bringing the last cartload was decorated with garlands of flowers and colourful ribbons.     A magnificent Harvest feast was held at the farmer's house and games were played to celebrate the end of the harvest." (wikipedia.org) "Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.[2] It is sometimes called American Thanksgiving (outside the United States) to distinguish it from the Canadian holiday of the same name and related celebrations in other regions. It originated as a day of thanksgiving and harvest festival, with the theme of the holiday revolving around giving thanks and the centerpiece of celebrations remaining a Thanksgiving dinner.[3][4] The dinner traditionally consists of foods indigenous to the Americas: turkey, potatoes (usually mashed or sweet), squash, corn (maize), green beans, cranberries (typically as cranberry sauce), and pumpkin pie. Other Thanksgiving customs include charitable organizations offering thanksgiving dinner for the poor, attending religious services, and watching television events such as Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and America's Thanksgiving Parade as well as NFL football games.[1] Thanksgiving is regarded as the beginning of the holiday season, with the day following it, Black Friday, said to be the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States. New England and Virginia colonists originally celebrated days of fasting, as well as days of thanksgiving, thanking God for blessings such as harvests, ship landings, military victories, or the end of a drought.[5] These were observed through church services, accompanied with feasts and other communal gatherings.[3][b] The modern day Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. is a federal holiday for Americans to give thanks as the Pilgrims did with their Native American neighbors after their first harvest in Plymouth (now in Massachusetts) in November 1621.[6] This feast lasted three days and was attended by 90 Native American Wampanoag people[7][c] and 53 survivors of the Mayflower (Pilgrims).[8] Less widely known is an earlier Thanksgiving celebration in Virginia in 1619 by English settlers who had just landed at Berkeley Hundred aboard the ship Margaret.[9] Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, with a proclamation by President George Washington.[10] President Thomas Jefferson chose not to observe the holiday, and its celebration was intermittent until President Abraham Lincoln, in 1863, proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens", calling on the American people to also, "with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience ... fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation". Lincoln declared it for the last Thursday in November.[11][12] On June 28, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law the Holidays Act that made Thanksgiving a yearly appointed federal holiday in Washington, D.C.[13][14][15] On January 6, 1885, an act by Congress made Thanksgiving, and other federal holidays, a paid holiday for all federal workers throughout the United States.[16] Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the date was moved to one week earlier, observed between 1939 and 1941 amid significant controversy. From 1942 onwards, Thanksgiving, by an act of Congress received a permanent observation date, the fourth Thursday in November, no longer at the discretion of the president.[17][18] History Early thanksgiving observances Further information: Days of humiliation and thanksgiving Setting aside time to give thanks for one's blessings, along with holding feasts to celebrate a harvest, are both practices that long predate the European settlement of North America. The Puritans observed days of fasting to pray for God's favor, as well as days of thanksgiving to thank God for a bountiful harvest, victory and other joyous occasions.[3] Documented thanksgiving services in territory currently belonging to the United States were conducted in the 16th century by Spaniards[19][20] and the French.[21] These days of thanksgiving were celebrated through church services and feasting.[3] Historian Michael Gannon claimed St. Augustine, Florida, was founded with a shared thanksgiving meal on September 8, 1565.[22] Thanksgiving services were routine in what became the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607;[23] the first permanent settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, held a thanksgiving in 1610.[19] On December 4, 1619, 38 English settlers celebrated a thanksgiving immediately upon landing at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia. The group's London Company charter specifically required "that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantation in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God".[9][24] This celebration has, since the mid 20th century, been commemorated there annually at present-day Berkeley Plantation, the ancestral home of the Harrison family of Virginia.[25] Harvest festival observed by the Pilgrims at Plymouth The Plymouth settlers, known as Pilgrims, had settled in a land abandoned when all but one of the Patuxet Indians died in a disease outbreak. After a harsh winter killed half of the Plymouth settlers, the last surviving Patuxet, Tisquantum, more commonly known by the diminutive variant Squanto (who had learned English and avoided the plague as a slave in Europe), came in at the request of Samoset, the first Native American to encounter the Pilgrims. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn and served as an interpreter for them until he too succumbed to the disease a year later. The Wampanoag leader Massasoit also gave food to the colonists during the first winter when supplies brought from England were insufficient. Massasoit had hoped to establish an alliance between the Wampanoag, themselves greatly weakened by the same plague that extirpated the Patuxet, and the better-armed English in their long-running rivalry with a Narragansett tribe that had largely been spared from the epidemic; the tribe reasoned that, given that the Pilgrims had brought women and children, they had not arrived to wage war against them.[27] The Pilgrims celebrated at Plymouth for three days after their first harvest in 1621. The exact time is unknown, but James Baker, the Plimoth Plantation vice president of research, stated in 1996, "The event occurred between Sept. 21 and Nov. 11, 1621, with the most likely time being around Michaelmas (Sept. 29), the traditional time."[28] Seventeenth-century accounts do not identify this as a Thanksgiving observance, rather it followed the harvest. It included 50 people who were on the Mayflower (all who remained of the 100 who had landed) and 90 Native Americans.[28] The Wampanoag tribe has a traditional way to mark their own Thanksgiving. "Harvest ceremonies and festivals have been an integral part of Wampanoag lifeways for thousands of years. Learn the significance of Cranberry Day for Wampanoag communities as they continue cultural traditions and relationships with their homeland today by visiting the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution."[1] The Pilgrim feast was cooked by the four adult Pilgrim women who survived their first winter in the New World (Eleanor Billington, Elizabeth Hopkins, Mary Brewster, and Susanna White), along with young daughters and male and female servants.[28][29] According to accounts by Wampanoag descendants, the harvest was originally set up for the Pilgrims alone; the surviving natives, hearing celebratory gunfire and fearing war, arrived to see the feast and were warmly welcomed to join the celebration, contributing their own foods to the meal. Two colonists gave personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth. The Pilgrims had to worship in secret, and then flee England because freedom of worship was forbidden by the Church of England led by their monarch. They lived in Holland for a generation. The Pilgrims of 1620, most of whom were Separatists (English Dissenters), are not to be confused with Puritans, who established their own Massachusetts Bay Colony on the Shawmut Peninsula (current day Boston) in 1630.[30][31] The groups differed in their views regarding the Church of England. Puritans wished to remain in the Anglican Church and reform it, while the Pilgrims needed to complete separation from the church.[32] William Bradford, in Of Plymouth Plantation wrote:     They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they can be used (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl, there was a great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to the proportion. Which made many afterward write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.[33] Edward Winslow, in Mourt's Relation wrote:     Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you, partakers of our plenty. The Pilgrims held a true Thanksgiving celebration in 1623[36][37] following a fast[38] and a refreshing 14 day rain,[39] which resulted in a larger harvest. William DeLoss Love calculates that this thanksgiving was made on Wednesday, July 30, 1623, a day before the arrival of a supply ship with more colonists,[38] but before the fall harvest. In Love's opinion, this 1623 thanksgiving was significant because the order to recognize the event was from civil authority[40] (Governor Bradford), and not from the church, making it likely the first civil recognition of Thanksgiving in New England.[38] Referring to the 1623 harvest after the nearly catastrophic drought, Bradford wrote:     And afterward, the Lord sent them such seasonable showers, with the interchange of fair warm weather as, through His blessing, caused a fruitful and liberal harvest, to their no small comfort and rejoicing. For which mercy, in time convenient, they also set apart a day of thanksgiving ... By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine now God gave them plenty ... for which they blessed God. And the effect of their particular planting was well seen, for all had ... pretty well ... so as any general want or famine had not been amongst them since to this day.[41] These firsthand accounts do not appear to have contributed to the early development of the holiday. Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation" was not published until the 1850s. The booklet "Mourt's Relation" was summarized by other publications without the now-familiar thanksgiving story. By the eighteenth century, the original booklet appeared to be lost or forgotten; a copy was rediscovered in Philadelphia in 1820, with the first full reprinting in 1841. In a footnote the editor, Alexander Young, was the first person to identify the 1621 feast as the first Thanksgiving....Post-Civil War era On June 28, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law the Holidays Act that made Thanksgiving a yearly "appointed or remembered" federal holiday in Washington D.C. Three other holidays included in the law were New Year, Christmas, and July 4. The law did not extend outside of Washington D.C., while the date assigned for Thanksgiving was left to the discretion of the President.[13][14][15] In January 1879, George Washington's Birthday, February 22, was added by Congress to the federal holidays list.[16] On January 6, 1885, a Congressional act expanded the Holidays Act to apply to all federal departments and employees throughout the nation. Federal workers received pay for all the holidays, including Thanksgiving.[16] During the second half of the 19th century, Thanksgiving traditions in America varied from region to region. A traditional New England Thanksgiving, for example, consisted of a raffle held on Thanksgiving Eve (in which the prizes were mainly geese or turkeys), a shooting match on Thanksgiving morning (in which turkeys and chickens were used as targets), church services — and then the traditional feast, which consisted of some familiar Thanksgiving staples such as turkey and pumpkin pie, and some not-so-familiar dishes such as pigeon pie.[citation needed] In New York City, people would dress up in fanciful masks and costumes and roam the streets in merry-making mobs. By the beginning of the 20th century, these mobs had morphed[citation needed] into Ragamuffin parades consisting mostly of children dressed as "ragamuffins" in costumes of old and mismatched adult clothes and with deliberately smudged faces, but by the late 1950s the tradition had diminished enough to only exist in its original form in a few communities around New York, with many of its traditions subsumed into the Halloween custom of trick-or-treating.[62] Franksgiving (1939–1941) Main article: Franksgiving Abraham Lincoln's successors as president followed his example of annually declaring the final Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving. But in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with this tradition.[17] November had five Thursdays that year (instead of the more-common four), Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving rather than the fifth one. Although many popular histories state otherwise, he made clear that his plan was to establish the holiday on the next-to-last Thursday in the month instead of the last one. With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought an earlier Thanksgiving would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas. Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would help bring the country out of the Depression. At the time, advertising goods for Christmas before Thanksgiving was considered inappropriate. Fred Lazarus, Jr., founder of the Federated Department Stores (later Macy's), is credited with convincing Roosevelt to push Thanksgiving to a week earlier to expand the shopping season, and within two years the change passed through Congress into law.[63][64] Republicans decried the change, calling it an affront to the memory of Lincoln. People began referring to November 30 as the "Republican Thanksgiving" and November 23 as the "Democratic Thanksgiving" or "Franksgiving".[65] 1942 to present On October 6, 1941, both houses of the United States Congress passed a joint resolution fixing the traditional last-Thursday date for the holiday beginning in 1942. However, in December of that year the Senate passed an amendment to the resolution that split the difference by requiring that Thanksgiving be observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, in order to prevent confusion on the occasional years in which November has five Thursdays.[66][14] The amendment also passed the House, and on December 26, 1941, President Roosevelt signed this bill, for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law and fixing the day as the fourth Thursday of November.[67] Traditional celebrations and solemnities Foods of the season Main article: Thanksgiving dinner The centerpiece of most Thanksgiving celebrations is the Thanksgiving dinner, consisting mainly of foods native to the Americas.[68] Turkey, usually roasted and stuffed (but sometimes deep-fried instead), is typically the featured item on most Thanksgiving feast tables. 40 million turkeys were consumed on Thanksgiving Day alone in 2019.[69] With 85 percent of Americans partaking in the meal, an estimated 276 million Americans dine on the festive poultry, spending an expected $1.05 billion on turkeys for Thanksgiving in 2016.[70][71] Mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet corn, various fall vegetables, squash, and pumpkin pie are among the side dishes commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner.[72] All these are actually native to the Americas or were introduced as a new food source to the Europeans when they arrived. Turkey may be an exception.[citation needed] Philbrick (2006)[73] suggests that the Pilgrims might already have been familiar with turkey in England, even though the bird is native to the Americas. The Spaniards had brought domesticated turkeys back from Central America in the early 17th century, and the birds soon became popular fare all over Europe, including England, where turkey (as an alternative to the traditional goose) became a "fixture at English Christmases". The Pilgrims did not observe Christmas.[74] As a result of the size of Thanksgiving dinner, Americans eat more food on Thanksgiving than on any other day of the year.[75] Thanksgiving dinners tend to be shorter when the participants have political differences.[76] Giving thanks Thanksgiving was founded as a religious observance for all the members of the community for a common purpose to give thanks to God. A 1541 thanksgiving mass was held by the Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and his expedition of 1,500 men at Palo Duro Canyon in what is today the Texas Panhandle.[19][20] A thanksgiving took place after the victory in the 1777 Battle of Saratoga during the Revolutionary War.[19] In his 1789 National Thanksgiving Proclamation, President Washington gave many noble reasons for a national Thanksgiving, including "for the civil and religious liberty", for "useful knowledge", and for God's "kind care" and "His Providence".[77] The tradition of giving thanks to God is continued today in many forms, most notably the attendance of religious services, as well as the saying of a mealtime prayer before Thanksgiving dinner.[4] Many houses of worship offer worship services and events on Thanksgiving themes the weekend before, the day of, or the weekend after Thanksgiving.[78] At home, it is a holiday tradition in many families to begin the Thanksgiving dinner by saying grace (a prayer before or after a meal).[79] The custom is portrayed in the photograph "Family Holding Hands and Praying Before a Thanksgiving Meal". Before praying, it is a common practice at the dining table for "each person [to] tell one specific reason they're thankful to God that year".[80] While grace is said, some families hold hands until the prayer concludes, often indicated with an "Amen".[81][82] Joy Fisher, a Baptist writer, states that "this holiday takes on a spiritual emphasis and includes recognition of the source of the blessings they enjoy year round — a loving God."[83] In the same vein, Hesham A. Hassaballa, an American Muslim scholar and physician, has written that Thanksgiving "is wholly consistent with Islamic principles" and that "few things are more Islamic than thanking God for His blessings".[84] Similarly many Sikh Americans also celebrate the holiday by "giving thanks to Almighty".[85] Penitence and prayer Thanksgiving is included in the Revised Common Lectionary, which provides scriptures for Thanksgiving services. It is the last entry on the liturgical calendar before the start of Advent the following Sunday.[86] Charity The poor are often provided with food at Thanksgiving time. Most communities have annual food drives that collect non-perishable packaged and canned foods, and corporations sponsor charitable distributions of staple foods and Thanksgiving dinners.[87] The Salvation Army enlists volunteers to serve Thanksgiving dinners to hundreds of people in different locales.[88][89] Additionally, pegged to be five days after Thanksgiving is Giving Tuesday, a celebration of charitable giving.[90] Parades For a more comprehensive list, see List of holiday parades. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, 1979 Since 1924, in New York City, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held annually every Thanksgiving Day from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Macy's flagship store in Herald Square, and televised nationally by NBC. The parade features parade floats with specific themes, performances from Broadway musicals, large balloons of cartoon characters, TV personalities, and high school marching bands. The float that traditionally ends the Macy's Parade is the Santa Claus float, the arrival of which is an unofficial sign of the beginning of the Christmas season. It is billed as the world's largest parade.[91] The oldest Thanksgiving Day parade is Philadelphia's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which launched in 1920. Philadelphia's parade was long associated with Gimbels, a prominent Macy's rival, until that store closed in 1986.[92] Founded in 1924, the same year as the Macy's parade, America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit is one of the largest parades in the country.[93] The parade runs from Midtown to Downtown Detroit and precedes the annual Detroit Lions Thanksgiving football game.[94] The parade includes large balloons, marching bands, and various celebrity guests much like the Macy's parade and is nationally televised on various affiliate stations.[95] The Mayor of Detroit closes the parade by giving Santa Claus a key to the city.[95] There are Thanksgiving parades in many other cities, including:     Ameren Missouri Thanksgiving Day Parade[96] (St. Louis, Missouri)     America's Hometown Thanksgiving Parade (Plymouth, Massachusetts)     Belk Carolinas' Carrousel Parade (Charlotte, North Carolina)     Celebrate the Season Parade (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)     FirstLight Federal Credit Union Sun Bowl Parade[97] (El Paso, Texas)     H-E-B Holiday Parade[98] (Houston, Texas)     Chicago Thanksgiving Parade (Chicago, Illinois)     Santa Claus Parade (Peoria, Illinois), the nation's oldest, dating to 1887 and held the day after Thanksgiving[99]     Parada de los Cerros Thanksgiving Day Parade[100] (Fountain Hills, Arizona)     UBS Parade Spectacular[101] (Stamford, Connecticut) — held the Sunday before Thanksgiving so it does not directly compete with the Macy's parade 30 miles (48 km) away. Most of these parades are televised on a local station, and some have small, usually regional, syndication networks; most also carry the parades via Internet television on the TV stations' websites. Several other parades have a loose association with Thanksgiving, thanks to CBS's now-discontinued All-American Thanksgiving Day Parade coverage. Parades that were covered during this era were the Aloha Floral Parade held in Honolulu, Hawaii every September,[102] the Toronto Santa Claus Parade in Toronto, Ontario, Canada,[103] and the Opryland Aqua Parade (held from 1996 to 2001 by the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville);[104] the Opryland parade was discontinued and replaced by a taped parade in Miami Beach, Florida in 2002. For many years the Santa Claus Lane Parade (now Hollywood Christmas Parade) in Los Angeles was held on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. In 1978 this was switched to the Sunday following the holiday.[105] Sports American football Main articles: American football on Thanksgiving and NFL on Thanksgiving Day American football is an important part of many Thanksgiving celebrations in the United States, a tradition that dates to the earliest era of the sport in the late 19th century.[106] Professional football games are often held on Thanksgiving Day; until recently, these were the only games played during the week apart from Sunday or Monday night. The National Football League has played games on Thanksgiving every year since its creation except during World War II. The Detroit Lions have hosted a game every Thanksgiving Day from 1934 to 1938 and again every year since 1945.[107] In 1966, the Dallas Cowboys, which were founded six years earlier, adopted the practice of hosting Thanksgiving games.[108] The league added a third game in primetime in 2006; unlike the traditional afternoon doubleheader, this game has no fixed host.[109] For college football teams that participate in the highest level (all teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, as well as three teams in the historically black Southwestern Athletic Conference of the Championship Subdivision), the regular season ends on Thanksgiving weekend, and a team's final game is often against a regional or historic rival, such as the Iron Bowl between Alabama and Auburn, the rivalry formerly known as the Oregon Civil War between Oregon and Oregon State, the Apple Cup between Washington and Washington State, and Michigan and Ohio State playing in their rivalry game.[110] Some high school football games (which include some state championship games), and informal "Turkey Bowl" contests played by amateur groups and organizations, are frequently held on Thanksgiving weekend.[111] Games of football preceding or following the meal in the backyard or a nearby field are also common during many family gatherings. Amateur games typically follow less organized backyard-rules, two-hand touch or flag football styles.[112] Other sports College basketball holds several elimination tournaments on over Thanksgiving weekend, before the conference season. These include the Anaheim-based Wooden Legacy,[113] the Orlando-based AdvoCare Invitational,[114] and the Bahamas-based Battle 4 Atlantis,[115] all of which are televised on ESPN2 and ESPNU in marathon format. The NCAA owned-and-operated NIT Season Tip-Off has also since moved to Thanksgiving week. Though golf and auto racing are in their off-seasons on Thanksgiving, there are events in those sports that take place on Thanksgiving weekend. The Turkey Night Grand Prix is an annual automobile race that takes place at various venues in southern California on Thanksgiving night;[117] due in part to the fact that this is after the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and IndyCar Series have finished their seasons, it allows some of the top racers in the United States to participate. In golf, Thanksgiving weekend was the traditional time of the Skins Game from 1983 to 2008.[118] The world championship pumpkin chunking contest was held in early November in Delaware and televised each Thanksgiving on Science Channel, but the event was mired in liability disputes following injuries at the events in the 2010s; it has been held only once since 2016,[119] a 2019 contest in Illinois that had far fewer competitors and ran a financial loss.[120] In ice hockey, the National Hockey League announced, as part of its decade-long extension with NBC, that they would begin airing a game on the Friday afternoon following Thanksgiving beginning the 2011–12 NHL season; the game has since been branded as the "Thanksgiving Showdown". (The Boston Bruins have played matinees on Black Friday since at least 1990, but 2011 was the first time the game was nationally televised.)[121] Professional wrestling promotions have typically held premier pay-per-view events on or around the time of Thanksgiving. This trend began in 1983 when Jim Crockett Promotions, the largest promoter in the National Wrestling Alliance, introduced Starrcade. Starrcade, later incorporated into World Championship Wrestling, moved off Thanksgiving in 1988;[122] the year prior, the rival World Wrestling Federation had introduced Survivor Series, an event that continues to be hosted in November to the present day.[123] Many American cities hold road running events, known as "turkey trots", on Thanksgiving morning, so much so that as of 2018, Thanksgiving is the most popular race day in the U.S.[124] Depending on the organizations involved, these can range from one-mile (1.6 km) fun runs to full marathons (although no races currently use the latter; the Atlanta Marathon stopped running on Thanksgiving in 2010).[125] In soccer, Major League Soccer announced in 2021 that a MLS Cup Playoffs match will be held on Thanksgiving for the first time, with a Conference Semifinals match of the 2021 Playoffs between the Colorado Rapids and the Portland Timbers held on that day. While the MLS Cup playoffs were usually held from October to December, no MLS match was held on a Thanksgiving Day before 2021.[126] There was no MLS Cup Playoff match held on Thanksgiving in 2022 to avoid conflicts with the 2022 FIFA World Cup which also begins days before Thanksgiving.[127] That MLS Cup match that would air on Fox will be determined by the year Fox has the early NFL game or late NFL game for their "Football-Futbol Doubleheader" format.[citation needed] Television For a more comprehensive list, see List of Thanksgiving television specials. While not as prolific as Christmas specials, which usually begin right after Thanksgiving, there are many special television programs transmitted on or around Thanksgiving, such as A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, in addition to the live parades and football games mentioned above. In some cases, television broadcasters begin programming Christmas films and specials to run on Thanksgiving Day, taking the day as a signal for the beginning of the Christmas season.[citation needed] Radio "Alice's Restaurant", an 18-minute monologue by Arlo Guthrie which is partially based on an incident that happened on Thanksgiving in 1965, was first released in 1967. It has since become a tradition on numerous classic rock and classic hits radio stations to play the full, uninterrupted recording to much fanfare each Thanksgiving Day, a tradition that appears to have originated with counterculture radio host Bob Fass, who introduced the song to the public on his radio show.[128] Another song that traditionally gets played on numerous radio stations (of many different formats) is "The Thanksgiving Song", a 1992 song by Adam Sandler.[129] In the beginning of the 21st century, Thanksgiving or the day after was the traditional start date when radio stations flipped to continuous Christmas music. Due to Christmas creep, this date has progressed to well before Thanksgiving for most stations that follow this strategy. Turkey pardoning Main article: National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation The President of the United States has received a Thanksgiving turkey every year since 1873; for the first 41 years, the turkey was provided by Westerly, Rhode Island turkey kingpin Horace Vose. In 1947, in what began as a lobbying ploy to get President Harry Truman to stop rationing turkey for foreign aid, the National Turkey Federation has presented the President of the United States with one live turkey and two dressed turkeys in a ceremony known as the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation. John F. Kennedy was the first president reported to spare the turkey given to him (he said he did not plan to eat the bird); by the late 1970s, most of the turkeys were being sent to petting zoos, while the dressed turkeys are usually sent to a charity such as Martha's Table.[citation needed] Some legends date the origins of pardoning turkey to the Harry Truman administration or even to Abraham Lincoln pardoning his son's Christmas turkey;[130] both stories have been quoted in more recent presidential speeches, but neither has any evidence in the Presidential record.[131] In more recent years, two turkeys have been pardoned, in case the original turkey becomes unavailable for presidential pardoning.[132][133] George H. W. Bush made the turkey pardon a permanent annual tradition upon assuming the presidency in 1989, a tradition that was possibly inspired in part by a joke his predecessor Ronald Reagan had cracked during the 1987 presentation and has been carried on by every president each year since.[134][135] After stints at Frying Pan Farm Park in Herndon, Virginia (1989 to 2004),[136] the Disney Resorts (2005 to 2009),[135] Mount Vernon (the estate of George Washington, 2010 to 2012), and Morven Park (the estate of Westmoreland Davis, 2013 to 2015), turkeys have lived the remainder of their lives in the care of agricultural departments of major universities. The turkeys rarely lived to see the next Thanksgiving due to being bred for large size;[130] this gradually improved over the course of the 2010s as Morven Park and the universities have been more aggressive in maintaining the turkeys' health.[137] Vacation and travel On Thanksgiving Day, families and friends usually gather for a large meal or dinner.[138] Consequently, the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest travel periods of the year.[139] Thanksgiving is a four-day or five-day weekend vacation for schools and colleges. Most business and government workers (78% as of 2007) are given Thanksgiving and the day after as paid holidays.[140] Thanksgiving Eve (also known as Blackout Wednesday), the night before Thanksgiving, is one of the busiest nights of the year for bars and clubs as many college students and others return to their hometowns to reunite with friends and family....Days after Thanksgiving A broader period of Thanksgivingtide leads into and follows the holiday of Thanksgiving itself. The day after Thanksgiving is a holiday for some companies and most schools. In the last two decades of the 20th century, it became known as Black Friday, the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and a day for chaotic, early-morning sales at major retailers that were closed on Thanksgiving.[165] A contrasting movement known as Buy Nothing Day originated in Canada in 1992.[166] The day after Thanksgiving is also Native American Heritage Day, a day to pay tribute to Native Americans for their many contributions to the United States.[167] Small Business Saturday, a movement promoting shopping at smaller local establishments, takes place on the last Saturday in November, two days after Thanksgiving.[168] Cyber Monday is a nickname given to the Monday following Thanksgiving; the day evolved in the early days of the Internet, when consumers returning to work took advantage of their employers' broadband Internet connections to do online shopping and retailers began offering sales to meet the demand.[169] (Green Monday is a similar observance in Christmastide.) Giving Tuesday takes place on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving." (wikipedia.org) "Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly Cucurbita and Lagenaria. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earliest domesticated types of plants, subspecies of the bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria, have been discovered in archaeological sites dating from as early as 13,000 BCE. Gourds have had numerous uses throughout history, including as tools, musical instruments, objects of art, film, and food. Terminology Gourd is occasionally used to describe crop plants in the family Cucurbitaceae, like pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, luffa, and melons.[1] More specifically, gourd refers to the fruits of plants in the two Cucurbitaceae genera Lagenaria and Cucurbita,[2][3] or also to their hollow, dried-out shell. There are many different gourds worldwide. The main plants referred to as gourds include several species from the genus Cucurbita (mostly native to North America, including the Malabar gourd and turban squash), Crescentia cujete (the tree gourd or calabash tree, native to the American tropics) and Lagenaria siceraria (bottle gourd, thought to be originally from Africa but present worldwide).[4][5]: 21  Other plants with gourd in their name include the luffa gourd (likely domesticated in Asia), which includes several species from the genus Luffa, as well as the wax gourd, snake gourd, teasel gourd, hedgehog gourd, buffalo gourd/coyote gourd. The bitter melon/balsam apple/balsam pear is also sometimes referred to as a gourd.[5]: 18–19, 21  History L. siceraria or bottle gourd, are native to the Americas, being found in Peruvian archaeological sites dating from 13,000 to 11,000 BCE and Thailand sites from 11,000 to 6,000 BCE.[4] A study of bottle gourd DNA published in 2005 suggests that there are two distinct subspecies of bottle gourds, domesticated independently in Africa and Asia, the latter approximately 4,000 years earlier. The gourds found in the Americas appear to have come from the Asian subspecies very early in history, although a new study now indicates Africa.[6] The archaeological and DNA records show it is likely that the gourd was among the first domesticated species, in Asia between 12,000 and 13,000 years before present, and possibly the first domesticated plant species.[7] Wild, poisonous gourds (Citrullus colocynthis) were unknowingly added to the company of prophets' stew according to a story of Elisha in the Hebrew Bible. Elisha added flour to the stew in order to purify it.[8] Gourds continued to be used throughout history in almost every culture throughout the world. European contact in North America found extensive gourd use, including the use of bottle gourds as birdhouses to attract purple martins, which provided bug control for agriculture. Almost every culture had musical instruments made of gourds, including drums, stringed instruments common to Africa and wind instruments, including the nose flutes of the Pacific....Uses Cultures from arid regions often associated gourds with water, and they appear in many creation myths. Since the beginning of their history, they have had a multitude of uses, including food, kitchen tools, toys, musical instruments and decoration.[4] Today, gourds are commonly used for a wide variety of crafts, including jewelry, furniture, dishes, utensils and a wide variety of decorations using carving, burning and other techniques." (wikipedia.org) "Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" that is visible when it is etched, rusted, or bent to failure. Wrought iron is tough, malleable, ductile, corrosion resistant, and easily forge welded, but is more difficult to weld electrically. Before the development of effective methods of steelmaking and the availability of large quantities of steel, wrought iron was the most common form of malleable iron. It was given the name wrought because it was hammered, rolled, or otherwise worked while hot enough to expel molten slag. The modern functional equivalent of wrought iron is mild steel, also called low-carbon steel. Neither wrought iron nor mild steel contain enough carbon to be increasingly hardened by heating and quenching.[1]: 145 [failed verification] Wrought iron is highly refined, with a small amount of silicate slag forged out into fibers. It comprises around 99.4% iron by mass.[2] The presence of slag can be beneficial for blacksmithing operations, such as forge welding, since the silicate inclusions act as a flux and give the material its unique, fibrous structure.[3] The silicate filaments in the slag also protect the iron from corrosion and diminish the effect of fatigue caused by shock and vibration.[4] Historically, a modest amount of wrought iron was refined into steel, which was used mainly to produce swords, cutlery, chisels, axes, and other edged tools, as well as springs and files. The demand for wrought iron reached its peak in the 1860s, being in high demand for ironclad warships and railway use. However, as properties such as brittleness of mild steel improved with better ferrous metallurgy and as steel became less costly to make thanks to the Bessemer process and the Siemens–Martin process, the use of wrought iron declined. Many items, before they came to be made of mild steel, were produced from wrought iron, including rivets, nails, wire, chains, rails, railway couplings, water and steam pipes, nuts, bolts, horseshoes, handrails, wagon tires, straps for timber roof trusses, and ornamental ironwork, among many other things.[5][note 1] Wrought iron is no longer produced on a commercial scale. Many products described as wrought iron, such as guard rails, garden furniture,[6] and gates are made of mild steel.[7] They are described as "wrought iron" only because they have been made to resemble objects which in the past were wrought (worked) by hand by a blacksmith (although many decorative iron objects, including fences and gates, were often cast rather than wrought).[7] Terminology The word "wrought" is an archaic past participle of the verb "to work", and so "wrought iron" literally means "worked iron".[8] Wrought iron is a general term for the commodity, but is also used more specifically for finished iron goods, as manufactured by a blacksmith. It was used in that narrower sense in British Customs records, such manufactured iron was subject to a higher rate of duty than what might be called "unwrought" iron. Cast iron, unlike wrought iron, is brittle and cannot be worked either hot or cold. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, wrought iron went by a wide variety of terms according to its form, origin, or quality. While the bloomery process produced wrought iron directly from ore, cast iron or pig iron were the starting materials used in the finery forge and puddling furnace. Pig iron and cast iron have higher carbon content than wrought iron, but have a lower melting point than iron or steel. Cast and especially pig iron have excess slag which must be at least partially removed to produce quality wrought iron. At foundries it was common to blend scrap wrought iron with cast iron to improve the physical properties of castings. For several years after the introduction of Bessemer and open hearth steel, there were different opinions as to what differentiated iron from steel; some believed it was the chemical composition and others that it was whether the iron heated sufficiently to melt and "fuse". Fusion eventually became generally accepted as relatively more important than composition below a given low carbon concentration.[9]: 32–39  Another difference is that steel can be hardened by heat treating. Historically, wrought iron was known as "commercially pure iron";[10][11] however, it no longer qualifies because current standards for commercially pure iron require a carbon content of less than 0.008 wt%....Properties The microstructure of wrought iron, showing dark slag inclusions in ferrite The slag inclusions, or stringers, in wrought iron give it properties not found in other forms of ferrous metal. There are approximately 250,000 inclusions per square inch.[7] A fresh fracture shows a clear bluish color with a high silky luster and fibrous appearance. Wrought iron lacks the carbon content necessary for hardening through heat treatment, but in areas where steel was uncommon or unknown, tools were sometimes cold-worked (hence cold iron) to harden them.[citation needed] An advantage of its low carbon content is its excellent weldability.[7] Furthermore, sheet wrought iron cannot bend as much as steel sheet metal when cold worked.[43][44] Wrought iron can be melted and cast; however, the product is no longer wrought iron, since the slag stringers characteristic of wrought iron disappear on melting, so the product resembles impure, cast, Bessemer steel. There is no engineering advantage to melting and casting wrought iron, as compared to using cast iron or steel, both of which are cheaper.[45][46] Due to the variations in iron ore origin and iron manufacture, wrought iron can be inferior or superior in corrosion resistance, compared to other iron alloys.[7][47][48][49] There are many mechanisms behind its corrosion resistance. Chilton and Evans found that nickel enrichment bands reduce corrosion.[50] They also found that in puddled, forged, and piled iron, the working-over of the metal spread out copper, nickel, and tin impurities that produce electrochemical conditions that slow down corrosion.[48] The slag inclusions have been shown to disperse corrosion to an even film, enabling the iron to resist pitting.[7] Another study has shown that slag inclusions are pathways to corrosion.[51] Other studies show that sulfur in the wrought iron decreases corrosion resistance,[49] while phosphorus increases corrosion resistance.[52] Chloride ions also decrease wrought iron's corrosion resistance.[49] Wrought iron may be welded in the same manner as mild steel, but the presence of oxide or inclusions will give defective results.[53] The material has a rough surface, so it can hold platings and coatings better than smooth steel. For instance, a galvanic zinc finish applied to wrought iron is approximately 25–40% thicker than the same finish on steel.[7] In Table 1, the chemical composition of wrought iron is compared to that of pig iron and carbon steel. Although it appears that wrought iron and plain carbon steel have similar chemical compositions, that is deceptive. Most of the manganese, sulfur, phosphorus, and silicon in the wrought iron are incorporated into the slag fibers, making wrought iron purer than plain carbon steel....Applications Wrought iron furniture has a long history, dating back to Roman times. There are 13th century wrought iron gates in Westminster Abbey in London, and wrought iron furniture seemed to reach its peak popularity in Britain in the 17th century, during the reign of William III and Mary II.[citation needed] However, cast iron and cheaper steel caused a gradual decline in wrought iron manufacture; the last wrought ironworks in Britain closed in 1974. It is also used to make home decor items such as baker's racks, wine racks, pot racks, etageres, table bases, desks, gates, beds, candle holders, curtain rods, bars, and bar stools. The vast majority of wrought iron available today is from reclaimed materials. Old bridges and anchor chains dredged from harbors are major sources.[citation needed] The greater corrosion resistance of wrought iron is due to the siliceous impurities (naturally occurring in iron ore), namely ferrous silicate.[64] Wrought iron has been used for decades as a generic term across the gate and fencing industry, even though mild steel is used for manufacturing these "wrought iron" gates.[65] This is mainly because of the limited availability of true wrought iron. Steel can also be hot-dip galvanised to prevent corrosion, which cannot be done with wrought iron." (wikipedia.org) "Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale: from huge ships, buildings, and bridges down to precise engine parts and delicate jewelry. The historical roots of metalworking predate recorded history; its use spans cultures, civilizations and millennia. It has evolved from shaping soft, native metals like gold with simple hand tools, through the smelting of ores and hot forging of harder metals like iron, up to highly technical modern processes such as machining and welding. It has been used as an industry, a driver of trade, individual hobbies, and in the creation of art;[1] it can be regarded as both a science and a craft. Modern metalworking processes, though diverse and specialized, can be categorized into one of three broad areas known as forming, cutting, or joining processes. Modern metalworking workshops, typically known as machine shops, hold a wide variety of specialized or general-use machine tools capable of creating highly precise, useful products. Many simpler metalworking techniques, such as blacksmithing, are no longer economically competitive on a large scale in developed countries; some of them are still in use in less developed countries, for artisanal or hobby work, or for historical reenactment. ...By the historical periods of the Pharaohs in Egypt, the Vedic Kings in India, the Tribes of Israel, and the Maya civilization in North America, among other ancient populations, precious metals began to have value attached to them. In some cases rules for ownership, distribution, and trade were created, enforced, and agreed upon by the respective peoples. By the above periods metalworkers were very skilled at creating objects of adornment, religious artifacts, and trade instruments of precious metals (non-ferrous), as well as weaponry usually of ferrous metals and/or alloys. These skills were well executed. The techniques were practiced by artisans, blacksmiths, atharvavedic practitioners, alchemists, and other categories of metalworkers around the globe. For example, the granulation technique was employed by numerous ancient cultures before the historic record shows people traveled to far regions to share this process. Metalsmiths today still use this and many other ancient techniques. As time progressed, metal objects became more common, and ever more complex. The need to further acquire and work metals grew in importance. Skills related to extracting metal ores from the earth began to evolve, and metalsmiths became more knowledgeable. Metalsmiths became important members of society. Fates and economies of entire civilizations were greatly affected by the availability of metals and metalsmiths. The metalworker depends on the extraction of precious metals to make jewelry, build more efficient electronics, and for industrial and technological applications from construction to shipping containers to rail, and air transport. Without metals, goods and services would cease to move around the globe on the scale we know today. General processes Metalworking generally is divided into three categories: forming, cutting, and joining. Most metal cutting is done by high speed steel tools or carbide tools.[7] Each of these categories contains various processes. Prior to most operations, the metal must be marked out and/or measured, depending on the desired finished product. Marking out (also known as layout) is the process of transferring a design or pattern to a workpiece and is the first step in the handcraft of metalworking. It is performed in many industries or hobbies, although in industry, the repetition eliminates the need to mark out every individual piece. In the metal trades area, marking out consists of transferring the engineer's plan to the workpiece in preparation for the next step, machining or manufacture. Calipers are hand tools designed to precisely measure the distance between two points. Most calipers have two sets of flat, parallel edges used for inner or outer diameter measurements. These calipers can be accurate to within one-thousandth of an inch (25.4 μm). Different types of calipers have different mechanisms for displaying the distance measured. Where larger objects need to be measured with less precision, a tape measure is often used." (wikipedia.org) "A jack-o'-lantern (or jack o'lantern) is a carved lantern, most commonly made from a pumpkin, or formerly a root vegetable such as a mangelwurzel, rutabaga or turnip.[1] Jack-o'-lanterns are associated with the Halloween holiday. Its name comes from the phenomenon of strange lights flickering over peat bogs, called jack-o'-lanterns (also known as, will-o'-the-wisps). It is suggested that the name also has ties to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a drunkard who bargains with Satan and is doomed to roam the Earth with only a hollowed turnip to light his way. Jack-o'-lanterns carved from pumpkins are a yearly Halloween tradition that developed in the United States when Irish, Cornish, Scottish and other Celtic influenced immigrants brought their root vegetable carving traditions with them.[2] It is common to see jack-o'-lanterns used as external and interior decorations prior to and on Halloween. To make a jack-o'-lantern, the top of a pumpkin is cut off to form a lid, the inside flesh is scooped out, and an image—usually a "scary" or "funny" face—is carved out of the rind exposing the hollow interior. A light source, traditionally a candle flame or tealight, is placed within before the lid is closed. Artificial jack-o'-lanterns with electric lights are also marketed. Etymology An assortment of carved pumpkins. The term jack-o'-lantern was originally used to describe the visual phenomenon ignis fatuus (lit., "foolish fire") known as a will-o'-the-wisp in English folklore.[3] Used especially in East England, its earliest known use dates to the 1660s.[4] The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) records use of the term in Britain from 1658 in reference to ignis fatuus, and from 1663 to 1704 in reference to a man with a lantern or to a night watchman. The OED gives 1837 as the earliest date for when the term was used to refer to a lantern carved from a turnip or pumpkin.[5] History Origin The carving of vegetables has been a common practice in many parts of the world. It is believed that the custom of making jack-o'-lanterns at Halloween time began in Ireland and Britain.[6][7][8] In the 19th century, "turnips or mangel wurzels, hollowed out to act as lanterns and often carved with grotesque faces," were used on Halloween in parts of Ireland, Wales and the Scottish Highlands.[9] In Gaelic speaking regions, Halloween was also the festival of Samhain and was seen as a time when supernatural beings (the Aos Sí) walked the earth. In Wales such nights were known as Ysbrydnosau (spirit nights), with Calan Gaeaf being the one which occurred on the night of 31 October. Jack-o'-lanterns were also made at Halloween time in Somerset, England (see Punkie Night) during the 19th century.[9] By those who made them, the lanterns were said to represent either spirits or supernatural beings,[9] or were used to ward off evil spirits.[10] For example, sometimes they were used by Halloween participants to frighten people,[10][11][12] and sometimes they were set on windowsills to keep harmful spirits out of one's home.[11] It has also been suggested that the jack-o'-lanterns originally represented Christian souls in purgatory, as Halloween is the eve of All Saints' Day (1 November)/All Souls' Day (2 November).[13] On January 16, 1836, the Dublin Penny Journal published a long story on the legend of "Jack-o'-the-Lantern", although this does not mention the lantern being carved from a vegetable.[14] In 1837, the Limerick Chronicle refers to a local pub holding a carved gourd competition and presenting a prize to "the best crown of Jack McLantern". The term "McLantern" also appears in an 1841 publication of the same paper.[citation needed] There is also evidence that turnips were used to carve what was called a "Hoberdy's Lantern" in Worcestershire, England, at the end of the 18th century. The folklorist Jabez Allies outlines other derivations of the name, "Hobany's", which is most likely derived from "Hob and his", with other variations including "Hob-o'-Lantern", "Hobbedy's Lantern" and "Hobbady-lantern".[15] In North America The application of the term to carved pumpkins in American English is first seen in 1837.[16] In the United States, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general before it became a symbol of Halloween.[17] In 1895, an article on Thanksgiving entertaining recommended giving a lit jack-o'-lantern as a child's prize in Thanksgiving games.[17][18] The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in Massachusetts in 1807, wrote the poem "The Pumpkin" (1850), which mentions Thanksgiving but not Halloween:[19]     Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,     When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling! When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,     Glaring out through the dark with a candle within! The carved pumpkin lantern's association with Halloween is recorded in the 1 November 1866 edition of the Daily News (Kingston, Ontario):     The old time custom of keeping up Hallowe'en was not forgotten last night by the youngsters of the city. They had their maskings and their merry-makings, and perambulated the streets after dark in a way which was no doubt amusing to themselves. There was a great sacrifice of pumpkins from which to make transparent heads and face, lighted up by the unfailing two inches of tallow candle.[20] In 1879's Funny Nursery Rhymes, a poem admonishes children to avoid being similar to untrustworthy "Master Jack o' Lantern," described as a "wicked, deceiving boy" similar to a will-o'-the-wisp who "dances, and jumps, and gambols." He is humorously illustrated as a personification of a lantern.[21] An 1885 article "Halloween Sports and Customs" contrasts the American jack-o'-lantern custom with the British bonfire custom:[22]     It is an ancient British custom to light great bonfires (Bone-fire to clear before Winter froze the ground) on Hallowe'en, and carry blazing fagots about on long poles; but in place of this, American boys delight in the funny grinning jack-o'-lanterns made of huge yellow pumpkins with a candle inside. Adaptations of Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820) often show the Headless Horseman with a jack-o'-lantern in place of his severed head. In the original story, a shattered pumpkin is discovered next to Ichabod Crane's abandoned hat on the morning after Crane's supposed encounter with the Horseman, but the story does not reference jack-o'-lanterns or Halloween.[23][24] Folklore A commercial "R.I.P." pattern. Halloween jack-o'-lantern. Pumpkin carving projected onto the wall. The story of the jack-o'-lantern comes in many forms and is similar to the story of Will-o'-the-wisp[25] retold in different forms across Western Europe,[26] including, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden.[27] In Switzerland, children will leave bowls of milk or cream out for mythical house spirits called Jack o' the bowl.[28] An old Irish folk tale from the mid-18th century tells of Stingy Jack, a lazy yet shrewd blacksmith who uses a cross to trap Satan. One story says that Jack tricked Satan into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there, Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that Satan could not get down.[29] Another version[citation needed] of the story says that Jack was getting chased by some villagers from whom he had stolen. He then met Satan, who claimed it was time for him to die. However, the thief stalled his death by tempting Satan with a chance to bedevil the church-going villagers chasing him. Jack told Satan to turn into a coin with which he would pay for the stolen goods (Satan could take on any shape he wanted); later, when the coin (Satan) disappeared, the Christian villagers would fight over who had stolen it. The Devil agreed to this plan. He turned himself into a silver coin and jumped into Jack's wallet, only to find himself next to a cross Jack had also picked up in the village. Jack closed the wallet tight, and the cross stripped the Devil of his powers; and so he was trapped. In both folktales, Jack lets Satan go only after he agrees to never take his soul. Many years later, the thief died, as all living things do. Of course, Jack's life had been too sinful for him to go to Heaven; however, Satan had promised not to take his soul, and so he was barred from Hell as well.[30] Jack now had nowhere to go. He asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light, and Satan mockingly tossed him a burning coal, to light his way. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which were his favorite food), put the coal inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place.[30] He became known as "Jack of the Lantern", or jack o'lantern. Cornish folklorist Dr. Thomas Quiller Couch (d. 1884) recorded the use of the term in a rhyme used in Polperro, Cornwall, in conjunction with Joan the Wad, the Cornish version of Will-o'-the-wisp. The people of Polperro regarded them both as pixies. The rhyme goes:[31]     Jack o' the lantern! Joan the wad,     Who tickled the maid and made her mad     Light me home, the weather's bad. Jack-o-lanterns were also a way of protecting one's home against the undead. Superstitious people[32] used them specifically to ward off vampires. They thought this because it was said that the jack-o-lantern's light was a way of identifying vampires who, once their identity was known, would give up their hunt for you. Pumpkin craft Jack-o'-lanterns in the process of creation Sections of the pumpkin or turnip are cut out to make holes, often depicting a face, which may be either cheerful, scary, or comical.[33] Jack-o'-lanterns are typically made from Connecticut field pumpkins, which are described as "the original commercial jack-o'-lantern pumpkin".[34][35] World records For a long time, Keene, New Hampshire, held the world record for most jack-o'-lanterns carved and lit in one place. The Life is Good Company teamed up with Camp Sunshine,[36] a camp for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families, to break the record. A record was set on October 21, 2006, when 30,128 jack-o'-lanterns were simultaneously lit on Boston Common in downtown Boston, Massachusetts.[37] Highwood, Illinois, tried to set the record on October 31, 2011, with an unofficial count of 30,919 but did not follow the Guinness regulations, so the achievement did not count.[38] On October 19, 2013, Keene broke the Boston record and reclaimed the world record for most lit jack-o'-lanterns on display (30,581). The town has now broken the record eight times since the original attempt." (wikipedia.org) "Halloween is a celebration observed on October 31, the day before the feast of All Hallows, also known as Hallowmas or All Saint's Day. The celebrations and observances of this day occur primarily in regions of the Western world, albeit with some traditions varying significantly between geographical areas. Origins Halloween is the eve of vigil before the Western Christian feast of All Hallows (or All Saints) which is observed on November 1. This day begins the triduum of Hallowtide, which culminates with All Souls' Day. In the Middle Ages, many Christians held a folk belief that All Hallows' Eve was the "night where the veil between the material world and the afterlife was at its most transparent".[2] Americas Canada Scottish emigration, primarily to Canada before 1870 and to the United States thereafter, brought the Scottish version of the holiday to each country. The earliest known reference to ritual begging on Halloween in English speaking North America occurs in 1911 when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario reported that it was normal for the smaller children to go street "guising" on Halloween between 6 and 7 p.m., visiting shops, and neighbours to be rewarded with nuts and candies for their rhymes and songs.[3] Canadians spend more on candy at Halloween than at any time apart from Christmas. Halloween is also a time for charitable contributions. Until 2006 when UNICEF moved to an online donation system, collecting small change was very much a part of Canadian trick-or-treating.[4] Quebec offers themed tours of parts of the old city and historic cemeteries in the area.[5] In 2014 the hamlet of Arviat, Nunavut moved their Halloween festivities to the community hall, cancelling the practice of door-to-door "trick or treating", due to the risk of roaming polar bears.[6][7] In British Columbia it is a tradition to set off fireworks at Halloween.[8] United States In the United States, Halloween did not become a holiday until the 19th century. The transatlantic migration of nearly two million Irish following the Great Irish Famine (1845–1849) brought the holiday to the United States. American librarian and author Ruth Edna Kelley wrote the first book length history of the holiday in the U.S., The Book of Hallowe'en (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America": "All Hallowe'en customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries. The taste in Hallowe'en festivities now is to study old traditions, and hold a Scotch party, using Robert Burns's poem Halloween as a guide; or to go a-souling as the English used. In short, no custom that was once honored at Hallowe'en is out of fashion now."[9] The main event for children of modern Halloween in the United States and Canada is trick-or-treating, in which children, teenagers, (sometimes) young adults, and parents (accompanying their children) disguise themselves in costumes and go door-to-door in their neighborhoods, ringing each doorbell and yelling "Trick or treat!" to solicit a gift of candy or similar items.[10] Teenagers and adults will more frequently attend Halloween-themed costume parties typically hosted by friends or themed events at nightclubs either on Halloween itself or a weekend close to the holiday. At the turn of the 20th century, Halloween had turned into a night of vandalism, with destruction of property and cruelty to animals and people.[11] Around 1912, the Boy Scouts, Boys Clubs, and other neighborhood organizations came together to encourage a safe celebration that would end the destruction that had become so common on this night. The commercialization of Halloween in the United States did not start until the 20th century, beginning perhaps with Halloween postcards (featuring hundreds of designs), which were most popular between 1905 and 1915.[12] Dennison Manufacturing Company (which published its first Halloween catalog in 1909) and the Beistle Company were pioneers in commercially made Halloween decorations, particularly die-cut paper items.[13][14] German manufacturers specialised in Halloween figurines that were exported to the United States in the period between the two World Wars. Halloween is now the United States' second most popular holiday (after Christmas) for decorating; the sale of candy and costumes is also extremely common during the holiday, which is marketed to children and adults alike. The National Confectioners Association (NCA) reported in 2005 that 80% of American adults planned to give out candy to trick-or-treaters.[15] The NCA reported in 2005 that 93% of children planned to go trick-or-treating.[16] According to the National Retail Federation, the most popular Halloween costume themes for adults are, in order: witch, pirate, vampire, cat, and clown.[17][when?] Each year, popular costumes are dictated by various current events and pop culture icons. On many college campuses, Halloween is a major celebration, with the Friday and Saturday nearest 31 October hosting many costume parties. Other popular activities are watching horror movies and visiting haunted houses. Total spending on Halloween is estimated to be $8.4 billion.[18] Events Many theme parks stage Halloween events annually, such as Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Orlando, Mickey's Halloween Party and Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Disneyland Resort and Magic Kingdom respectively, and Knott's Scary Farm at Knott's Berry Farm. One of the more notable parades is New York's Village Halloween Parade. Each year approximately 50,000 costumed marchers parade up Sixth Avenue.[19] Salem, Massachusetts, site of the Salem witch trials, celebrates Halloween throughout the month of October with tours, plays, concerts, and other activities.[20] A number of venues in New York's lower Hudson Valley host various events to showcase a connection with Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Van Cortlandt Manor stages the "Great Jack o' Lantern Blaze" featuring thousands of lighted carved pumpkins.[21] Some locales have had to modify their celebrations due to disruptive behavior on the part of young adults. Madison, Wisconsin hosts an annual Halloween celebration. In 2002, due to the large crowds in the State Street area, a riot broke out, necessitating the use of mounted police and tear gas to disperse the crowds.[22] Likewise, Chapel Hill, site of the University of North Carolina, has a downtown street party which in 2007 drew a crowd estimated at 80,000 on downtown Franklin Street, in a town with a population of just 54,000. In 2008, in an effort to curb the influx of out-of-towners, mayor Kevin Foy put measures in place to make commuting downtown more difficult on Halloween.[23] In 2014, large crowds of college students rioted at the Keene, New Hampshire Pumpkin Fest, whereupon the City Council voted not to grant a permit for the following year's festival,[24] and organizers moved the event to Laconia for 2015.[25] Brazil Main article: Saci Day The Brazilian non-governmental organization named Amigos do Saci created Saci Day as a Brazilian parallel in opposition to the "American-influenced" holiday of Halloween that saw minor celebration in Brazil. The Saci is a mischievous evil character in Brazilian folklore. Saci Day is commemorated on October 31, the same day as Halloween, and is an official holiday in the state of São Paulo. Despite official recognition in São Paulo and several other municipalities throughout the country, few Brazilians celebrate it.[26][27] Dominican Republic In the Dominican Republic it has been gaining popularity, largely due to many Dominicans living in the United States and then bringing the custom to the island. In the larger cities of Santiago or Santo Domingo it has become more common to see children trick-or-treating, but in smaller towns and villages it is almost entirely absent, partly due to religious opposition. Tourist areas such as Sosua and Punta Cana feature many venues with Halloween celebrations, predominantly geared towards adults.[28] Mexico (Día de Muertos) Observed in Mexico and Mexican communities abroad, Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de Muertos) celebrations arose from the syncretism of indigenous Aztec traditions with the Christian Hallowtide of the Spanish colonizers. Flower decorations, altars and candies are part of this holiday season. The holiday is distinct from Halloween in its origins and observances, but the two have become associated because of cross-border connections between Mexico and the United States through popular culture and migration, as the two celebrations occur at the same time of year and may involve similar imagery, such as skeletons. Halloween and Día de Muertos have influenced each other in some areas of the United States and Mexico, with Halloween traditions such as costumes and face-painting becoming increasingly common features of the Mexican festival.[29][30][31] Asia China The Chinese celebrate the "Hungry Ghost Festival" in mid-July, when it is customary to float river lanterns to remember those who have died. By contrast, Halloween is often called "All Saints' Festival" (Wànshèngjié, 萬聖節), or (less commonly) "All Saints' Eve" (Wànshèngyè, 萬聖夜) or "Eve of All Saints' Day" (Wànshèngjié Qiányè, 萬聖節前夕), stemming from the term "All Hallows Eve" (hallow referring to the souls of holy saints). Chinese Christian churches hold religious celebrations. Non-religious celebrations are dominated by expatriate Americans or Canadians, but costume parties are also popular for Chinese young adults, especially in large cities. Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park (Halloween Bash) host annual Halloween shows. Mainland China has been less influenced by Anglo traditions than Hong Kong and Halloween is generally considered "foreign". As Halloween has become more popular globally it has also become more popular in China, however, particularly amongst children attending private or international schools with many foreign teachers from North America.[32] Hong Kong Traditional "door-to-door" trick or treating is not commonly practiced in Hong Kong due to the vast majority of Hong Kong residents living in high-rise apartment blocks. However, in many buildings catering to expatriates, Halloween parties and limited trick or treating is arranged by the management. Instances of street-level trick or treating in Hong Kong occur in ultra-exclusive gated housing communities such as The Beverly Hills populated by Hong Kong's super-rich and in expatriate areas like Discovery Bay and the Red Hill Peninsula. For the general public, there are events at Tsim Sha Tsui's Avenue of the Stars that try to mimic the celebration.[33] In the Lan Kwai Fong area of Hong Kong, known as a major entertainment district for the international community, a Halloween celebration and parade has taken place for over 20 years, with many people dressing in costume and making their way around the streets to various drinking establishments.[34] Many international schools also celebrate Halloween with costumes, and some put an academic twist on the celebrations such as the "Book-o-ween" celebrations at Hong Kong International School where students dress as favorite literary characters. Japan Halloween arrived in Japan mainly as a result of American pop culture. In 2009 it was celebrated only by expats.[35] The wearing of elaborate costumes by young adults at night has since become popular in areas such as Amerikamura in Osaka and Shibuya in Tokyo, where, in October 2012, about 1700 people dressed in costumes to take part in the Halloween Festival.[36] Celebrations have become popular with young adults as a costume party and club event.[37] Trick-or-treating for Japanese children has taken hold in some areas. By the mid-2010s, Yakuza were giving snacks and sweets to children.[38] Philippines The period from 31 October through 2 November is a time for remembering dead family members and friends. Many Filipinos travel back to their hometowns for family gatherings of festive remembrance.[39] Trick-or-treating is gradually replacing the dying tradition of Pangangaluluwâ, a local analogue of the old English custom of souling. People in the provinces still observe Pangangaluluwâ by going in groups to every house and offering a song in exchange for money or food. The participants, usually children, would sing carols about the souls in Purgatory, with the abúloy (alms for the dead) used to pay for Masses for these souls. Along with the requested alms, householders sometimes gave the children suman (rice cakes). During the night, various small items, such as clothing, plants, etc., would "mysteriously" disappear, only to be discovered the next morning in the yard or in the middle of the street. In older times, it was believed that the spirits of ancestors and loved ones visited the living on this night, manifesting their presence by taking an item.[40] As the observation of Christmas traditions in the Philippines begins as early as September, it is a common sight to see Halloween decorations next to Christmas decorations in urban settings.[citation needed] Saudi Arabia Starting 2022, Saudi Arabia began to celebrate Halloween in the public in Riyadh under its Vision 2030[41] Singapore Around mid-July Singapore Chinese celebrate "Zhong Yuan Jie / Yu Lan Jie" (Hungry Ghosts Festival), a time when it is believed that the spirits of the dead come back to visit their families.[42] In recent years, Halloween celebrations are becoming more popular, with influence from the west.[43] In 2012, there were over 19 major Halloween celebration events around Singapore.[44] SCAPE's Museum of Horrors held its fourth scare fest in 2014.[45] Universal Studios Singapore hosts "Halloween Horror Nights".[46] South Korea The popularity of the holiday among young people in South Korea comes from English academies and corporate marketing strategies, and was influenced by Halloween celebrations in Japan and America.[47] Despite not being a public holiday, it is celebrated in different areas around Seoul, especially Itaewon and Hongdae.[48] Taiwan Traditionally, Taiwanese people celebrate "Zhong Yuan Pudu Festival", where spirits that do not have any surviving family members to pay respects to them, are able to roam the Earth during the seventh lunar month. It is known as Ghost Month.[49] While some have compared it to Halloween, it has no relations and the overall meaning is different. In recent years, mainly as a result of American pop culture, Halloween is becoming more widespread amongst young Taiwanese people. Halloween events are held in many areas across Taipei, such as Xinyi Special District and Shilin District where there are many international schools and expats.[50] Halloween parties are celebrated differently based on different age groups. One of the most popular Halloween event is the Tianmu Halloween Festival, which started in 2009 and is organised by the Taipei City Office of Commerce.[51] The 2-day annual festivity has attracted more than 240,000 visitors in 2019. During this festival, stores and businesses in Tianmu place pumpkin lanterns outside their stores to identify themselves as trick-or-treat destinations for children.[52] Oceania Australia Non-religious celebrations of Halloween modelled on North American festivities are growing increasingly popular in Australia despite not being traditionally part of the culture.[53] Some Australians criticise this intrusion into their culture.[54][55] Many dislike the commercialisation and American pop-culture influence.[55][56] Some supporters of the event place it alongside other cultural traditions such as Saint Patrick's Day.[57] Halloween historian and author of Halloween: Pagan Festival to Trick or Treat, Mark Oxbrow says while Halloween may have been popularised by depictions of it in US movies and TV shows, it is not a new entry into Australian culture.[58] His research shows Halloween was first celebrated in Australia in Castlemaine, Victoria, in 1858, which was 43 years before Federation. His research shows Halloween traditions were brought to the country by Scottish miners who settled in Victoria during the Gold Rush. Because of the polarised opinions about Halloween, growing numbers of people are decorating their letter boxes to indicate that children are welcome to come knocking. In the past decade, the popularity of Halloween in Australia has grown.[59] In 2020, the first magazine dedicated solely to celebrating Halloween in Australia was launched, called Hallozween,[60] and in 2021, sales of costumes, decorations and carving pumpkins soared to an all-time high[61] despite the effect of the global COVID-19 pandemic limiting celebrations. New Zealand In New Zealand, Halloween is not celebrated to the same extent as in North America, although in recent years non-religious celebrations have become more common.[62][63] Trick-or-treat has become increasingly popular with minors in New Zealand, despite being not a "British or Kiwi event" and the influence of American globalisation.[64] One criticism of Halloween in New Zealand is that it is overly commercialised - by The Warehouse, for example.[64] Europe Over the years, Halloween has become more popular in Europe and has been partially ousting some older customs like the Rübengeistern [de] (English: turnip ghosts, beet spirit), Martinisingen, and others.[65] France Halloween was introduced to most of France in the 1990s.[66] In Brittany, Halloween had been celebrated for centuries and is known as Kalan Goañv (Night of Spirits). During this time, it is believed that the spirits of the dead return to the world of the living lead by the Ankou, the collector of souls.[67] Also during this time, Bretons bake Kornigou, a pastry shaped like the antlers of a stag.[citation needed] Germany Halloween was not generally observed in Germany prior to the 1990s, but has been increasing in popularity. It has been associated with the influence of United States culture, and "Trick or Treating" (German: Süßes sonst gibt's Saures) has been occurring in various German cities, especially in areas such as the Dahlem neighborhood in Berlin, which was part of the American zone during the Cold War. Today, Halloween in Germany brings in 200 million euros a year, through multiple industries.[68] Halloween is celebrated by both children and adults. Adults celebrate at themed costume parties and clubs, while children go trick or treating. Complaints of vandalism associated with Halloween "Tricks" are increasing, particularly from many elderly Germans unfamiliar with "Trick or Treating".[69] Greece In Greece, Halloween is not celebrated widely and it is a working day, with little public interest, since the early 2000s. Recently, it has somewhat increased in popularity as both a secular celebration; although Carnival is vastly more popular among Greeks. For very few, Halloween is[when?] considered the fourth most popular festival in the country after Christmas, Easter, and Carnival. Retail businesses, bars, nightclubs, and certain theme parks might organize Halloween parties. This boost in popularity has been attributed to the influence of western consumerism. Since it is a working day, Halloween is not celebrated on 31 October unless the date falls on a weekend, in which case it is celebrated by some during the last weekend before All Hallow's Eve, usually in the form of themed house parties and retail business decorations. Trick-or-treating is not widely popular because similar activities are already undertaken during Carnival. The slight rise in popularity of Halloween in Greece has led to some increase in its popularity throughout nearby countries in the Balkans and Cyprus. In the latter, there has been an increase in Greek-Cypriot retailers selling Halloween merchandise every year.[70] Ireland On Halloween night, adults and children dress up as various monsters and creatures, light bonfires, and enjoy fireworks displays; Derry in Northern Ireland is home to the largest organized Halloween celebration on the island, in the form of a street carnival and fireworks display. Games are often played, such as bobbing for apples, in which apples, peanuts, other nuts and fruits, and some small coins are placed in a basin of water.[73] Everyone takes turns catching as many items possible using only their mouths. Another common game involves the hands-free eating of an apple hung on a string attached to the ceiling. Games of divination are also played at Halloween.[74] Colcannon is traditionally served on Halloween.[73] 31 October is the busiest day of the year for the Emergency Services.[75] Bangers and fireworks are illegal in the Republic of Ireland; however, they are commonly smuggled in from Northern Ireland where they are legal.[76] Bonfires are frequently built around Halloween.[77] Trick-or-treating is popular amongst children on 31 October and Halloween parties and events are commonplace. October Holiday occurs on the last Monday of October and may fall on Halloween. Its Irish names are Lá Saoire i Mí Dheireadh Fómhair or Lá Saoire Oíche Shamhna, the latter translating literally as 'Halloween holiday'. Italy In Italy, All Saints' Day is a public holiday. On 2 November, Tutti i Morti or All Souls' Day, families remember loved ones who have died. These are still the main holidays.[78] In some Italian tradition, children would awake on the morning of All Saints or All Souls to find small gifts from their deceased ancestors. In Sardinia, Concas de Mortu (Head of the deads), carved pumpkins that look like skulls, with candles inside are displayed.[79][80][81] Halloween is, however, gaining in popularity, and involves costume parties for young adults.[82] The traditions to carve pumpkins in a skull figure, lighting candles inside, or to beg for small gifts for the deads e.g. sweets or nuts, also belong to North Italy.[83] In Veneto these carved pumpkins were called lumère (lanterns) or suche dei morti (deads' pumpkins).[84] Poland Since the fall of Communism in 1989, Halloween has become increasingly popular in Poland. Particularly, it is celebrated among younger people. The influx of Western tourists and expats throughout the 1990s introduced the costume party aspect of Hallowe'en celebrations, particularly in clubs and at private house parties. Door-to-door trick or treating is not common. Pumpkin carving is becoming more evident, following a strong North American version of the tradition. Poland is the biggest pumpkin producer in the European Union[85]. Romania Romanians observe the Feast of St. Andrew, patron saint of Romania, on 30 November. On St. Andrew's Eve ghosts are said to be about. A number of customs related to divination, in other places connected to Halloween, are associated with this night.[86] However, with the popularity of Dracula in western Europe, around Halloween the Romanian tourist industry promotes trips to locations connected to the historical Vlad Tepeș and the more fanciful Dracula of Bram Stoker. One of the most successful Halloween Parties in Transylvania takes place in Sighișoara, the citadel where Vlad the Impaler was born. This party include magician shows, ballet show and The Ritual Killing of a Living Dead[87] The biggest Halloween party in Transylvania take place at Bran Castle, aka Dracula's Castle from Transylvania.[88] Both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in Romania discourage Halloween celebrations, advising their parishioners to focus rather on the "Day of the Dead" on 1 November, when special religious observances are held for the souls of the deceased.[89] Opposition by religious and nationalist groups, including calls to ban costumes and decorations in schools in 2015, have been met with criticism.[90][91][92] Halloween parties are popular in bars and nightclubs.[93] Russia In Russia, most Christians are Orthodox, and in the Orthodox Church, Halloween is on the Saturday after Pentecost, and therefore 4 to 5 months before western Halloween. Celebration of western Halloween began in the 1990s around the downfall of the Soviet regime, when costume and ghoulish parties spread in night clubs throughout Russia. Halloween is generally celebrated by younger generations and is not widely celebrated in civic society (e.g. theaters or libraries). In fact, Halloween is among the Western celebrations that the Russian government and politicians—which have grown increasingly anti-Western in the early 2010s—are trying to eliminate from public celebration.[94][95][96] Spain In Spain, celebrations involve eating castanyes (roasted chestnuts), panellets (special almond balls covered in pine nuts), moniatos (roast or baked sweet potato), Ossos de Sant cake and preserved fruit (candied or glazed fruit). Moscatell (Muscat) is drunk from porrons.[97] Around the time of this celebration, it is common for street vendors to sell hot toasted chestnuts wrapped in newspaper. In many places, confectioners often organise raffles of chestnuts and preserved fruit. The tradition of eating these foods comes from the fact that during All Saints' night, on the eve of All Souls' Day in the Christian tradition, bell ringers would ring bells in commemoration of the dead into the early morning. Friends and relatives would help with this task, and everyone would eat these foods for sustenance.[98] Other versions of the story state that the Castanyada originates at the end of the 18th century and comes from the old funeral meals, where other foods, such as vegetables and dried fruit were not served. The meal had the symbolic significance of a communion with the souls of the departed: while the chestnuts were roasting, prayers would be said for the person who had just died.[99] The festival is usually depicted with the figure of a castanyera: an old lady, dressed in peasant's clothing and wearing a headscarf, sitting behind a table, roasting chestnuts for street sale. In recent years, the Castanyada has become a revetlla of All Saints and is celebrated in the home and community. It is the first of the four main school festivals, alongside Christmas, Carnestoltes and St George's Day, without reference to ritual or commemoration of the dead.[100] Galicia is known to have the second largest Halloween or Samain festivals in Europe and during this time, a drink called Queimada is often served.[citation needed] Sweden On All Hallow's Eve, a Requiem Mass is widely attended every year at Uppsala Cathedral, part of the Lutheran Church of Sweden.[101] Throughout the period of Allhallowtide, starting with All Hallow's Eve, Swedish families visit churchyards and adorn the graves of their family members with lit candles and wreaths fashioned from pine branches.[101] Among children, the practice of dressing in costume and collecting candy gained popularity beginning around 2005.[102] The American traditions of Halloween have however been met with skepticism among the older generations, in part due to conflicting with the Swedish traditions on All Hallow's Eve and in part due to their commercialism.[103] In Sweden, All Saint's Day/ All Hallow's Eve is observed on the Saturday occurring between October 31 and November 6, whereas Halloween is observed on October 31, every year. Switzerland In Switzerland, Halloween, after first becoming popular in 1999, is on the wane, and is most popular with young adults who attend parties. Switzerland already has a "festival overload" and even though Swiss people like to dress up for any occasion, they do prefer a traditional element, such as in the Fasnacht tradition of chasing away winter using noise and masks.[104][105] United Kingdom and Crown dependencies England See also: Mischief Night and Allantide In the past, on All Souls' Eve families would stay up late, and little "soul cakes" were eaten. At the stroke of midnight, there was solemn silence among households, which had candles burning in every room to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes and a glass of wine on the table to refresh them. The tradition of giving soul cakes that originated in Great Britain and Ireland was known as souling, often seen as the origin of modern trick or treating in North America, and souling continued in parts of England as late as the 1930s, with children going from door to door singing songs and saying prayers for the dead in return for cakes or money.[106] Trick or treating and other Halloween celebrations are extremely popular, with shops decorated with witches and pumpkins, and young people attending costume parties.[107] Scotland The name Halloween is first attested in the 16th century as a Scottish shortening of the fuller All-Hallow-Even, that is, the night before All Hallows' Day.[108] Dumfries poet John Mayne's 1780 poem made note of pranks at Halloween "What fearfu' pranks ensue!". Scottish poet Robert Burns was influenced by Mayne's composition, and portrayed some of the customs in his poem Halloween (1785).[109] According to Burns, Halloween is "thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischief-making beings are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands".[110] Among the earliest record of Guising at Halloween in Scotland is in 1895, where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit and money.[111] If children approached the door of a house, they were given offerings of food. The children's practice of "guising", going from door to door in costumes for food or coins, is a traditional Halloween custom in Scotland.[3] These days children who knock on their neighbours doors have to sing a song or tell stories for a gift of sweets or money.[112] A traditional Halloween game includes apple "dooking",[113] or "dunking" or (i.e., retrieving one from a bucket of water using only one's mouth), and attempting to eat, while blindfolded, a treacle/jam-coated scone hanging on a piece of string. Traditional customs and lore include divination practices, ways of trying to predict the future. A traditional Scottish form of divining one's future spouse is to carve an apple in one long strip, then toss the peel over one's shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name.[114] In Kilmarnock, Halloween is also celebrated on the last Friday of the month, and is known colloquially as "Killieween".[115] Isle of Man See also: Hop-tu-Naa Halloween is a popular traditional occasion on the Isle of Man, where it is known as Hop-tu-Naa. Elsewhere Saint Helena In Saint Helena, Halloween is actively celebrated, largely along the American model, with ghosts, skeletons, devils, vampires, witches and the like. Imitation pumpkins are used instead of real pumpkins because the pumpkin harvesting season in Saint Helena's hemisphere is not near Halloween. Trick-or-treating is widespread. Party venues provide entertainment for adults." (wikipedia.org) "Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas.[1] It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture. It originated in the Île-de-France and Picardy regions of northern France. The style at the time was sometimes known as opus Francigenum (lit. 'French work');[2] the term Gothic was first applied contemptuously during the later Renaissance, by those ambitious to revive the architecture of classical antiquity. The defining design element of Gothic architecture is the pointed or ogival arch. The use of the pointed arch in turn led to the development of the pointed rib vault and flying buttresses, combined with elaborate tracery and stained glass windows.[3] At the Abbey of Saint-Denis, near Paris, the choir was reconstructed between 1140 and 1144, drawing together for the first time the developing Gothic architectural features. In doing so, a new architectural style emerged that emphasized verticality and the effect created by the transmission of light through stained glass windows.[4] Common examples are found in Christian ecclesiastical architecture, and Gothic cathedrals and churches, as well as abbeys, and parish churches. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guildhalls, universities and, less prominently today, private dwellings. Many of the finest examples of medieval Gothic architecture are listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. With the development of Renaissance architecture in Italy during the mid-15th century, the Gothic style was supplanted by the new style, but in some regions, notably England and Belgium, Gothic continued to flourish and develop into the 16th century. A series of Gothic revivals began in mid-18th century England, spread through 19th-century Europe and continued, largely for churches and university buildings, into the 20th century. ...Periods Architecture "became a leading form of artistic expression during the late Middle Ages".[26] Gothic architecture began in the earlier 12th century in northwest France and England and spread throughout Latin Europe in the 13th century; by 1300, a first "international style" of Gothic had developed, with common design features and formal language. A second "international style" emerged by 1400, alongside innovations in England and central Europe that produced both the perpendicular and flamboyant varieties. Typically, these typologies are identified as:[26]     c.1130–c.1240 Early to High Gothic and Early English     c.1240–c.1350 Rayonnant and Decorated Style     c.1350–c.1500 Late Gothic: flamboyant and perpendicular     c.16th–18th century Post-Gothic...Rib vaults Main article: Rib vault The Gothic rib vault was one of the essential elements that made possible the great height and large windows of the Gothic style.[64] Unlike the semi-circular barrel vault of Roman and Romanesque buildings, where the weight pressed directly downward, and required thick walls and small windows, the Gothic rib vault was made of diagonal crossing arched ribs. These ribs directed the thrust outwards to the corners of the vault, and downwards via slender colonettes and bundled columns, to the pillars and columns below. The space between the ribs was filled with thin panels of small pieces of stone, which were much lighter than earlier groin vaults. The outward thrust against the walls was countered by the weight of buttresses and later flying buttresses. As a result, the massive thick walls of Romanesque buildings were no longer needed; Since the vaults were supported by the columns and piers, the walls could be thinner and higher, and filled with windows.[65][33][66] The earlier Gothic rib vaults, used at Sens Cathedral (begun between 1135 and 1140) and Notre-Dame de Paris (begun 1163), were divided by the ribs into six compartments. They were very difficult to build, and could only cross a limited space. Since each vault covered two bays, they needed support on the ground floor from alternating columns and piers. In later construction, the design was simplified, and the rib vaults had only four compartments. The alternating rows of alternating columns and piers receiving the weight of the vaults was replaced by simple pillars, each receiving the same weight. A single vault could cross the nave. This method was used at Chartres Cathedral (1194–1220), Amiens Cathedral (begun 1220), and Reims Cathedral.[67] The four-part vaults made it possible for the building to be even higher. Notre-Dame de Paris, begun in 1163 with six-part vaults, reached a height of 35 m (115 ft). Amiens Cathedral, begun in 1220 with the newer four-part ribs, reached the height of 42.3 m (139 ft) at the transept." (wikipedia.org) "Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure, and Joy Division. The goth subculture has survived much longer than others of the same era, and has continued to diversify and spread throughout the world. Its imagery and cultural proclivities indicate influences from 19th-century Gothic fiction and from horror films. The scene is centered on music festivals, nightclubs, and organized meetings, especially in Western Europe. The subculture has associated tastes in music, aesthetics, and fashion. The music preferred by goths includes a number of styles such as gothic rock, death rock, cold wave, dark wave, and ethereal wave.[1] The Gothic fashion style draws influences from punk, new wave, New Romantic fashion[2] and the dressing styles of earlier periods such as the Victorian, Edwardian, and Belle Époque eras. The style most often includes dark (usually solid black) attire, dark makeup, and black hair....Art, historical and cultural influences The Goth subculture of the 1980s drew inspiration from a variety of sources. Some of them were modern or contemporary, others were centuries-old or ancient. Michael Bibby and Lauren M. E. Goodlad liken the subculture to a bricolage.[32] Among the music-subcultures that influenced it were punk, new wave, and glam.[32] But it also drew inspiration from B-movies, Gothic literature, horror films, vampire cults and traditional mythology. Among the mythologies that proved influential in Goth were Celtic mythology, Christian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and various traditions of Paganism.[32] The figures that the movement counted among its historic canon of ancestors were equally diverse. They included the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844‒1900), Comte de Lautréamont (1846‒1870), Salvador Dalí (1904‒1989) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905‒1980).[32] Writers that have had a significant influence on the movement also represent a diverse canon. They include Ann Radcliffe (1764‒1823), John William Polidori (1795‒1821), Edgar Allan Poe (1809‒1849), Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873), Bram Stoker (1847‒1912), Oscar Wilde (1854‒1900), H. P. Lovecraft (1890‒1937), Anne Rice (1941‒2021), William Gibson (1948‒present), Ian McEwan (1948‒present), Storm Constantine (1956‒2021), and Poppy Z. Brite (1967‒present).[32] 18th and 19th centuries Gothic literature is a genre of fiction that combines romance and dark elements to produce mystery, suspense, terror, horror and the supernatural. According to David H. Richter, settings were framed to take place at "...ruinous castles, gloomy churchyards, claustrophobic monasteries, and lonely mountain roads". Typical characters consisted of the cruel parent, sinister priest, courageous victor, and the helpless heroine, along with supernatural figures such as demons, vampires, ghosts, and monsters. Often, the plot focused on characters ill-fated, internally conflicted, and innocently victimized by harassing malicious figures. In addition to the dismal plot focuses, the literary tradition of the gothic was to also focus on individual characters that were gradually going insane.[33] English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto is one of the first writers who explored this genre. The American Revolutionary War-era "American Gothic" story of the Headless Horseman, immortalized in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (published in 1820) by Washington Irving, marked the arrival in the New World of dark, romantic storytelling. The tale was composed by Irving while he was living in England, and was based on popular tales told by colonial Dutch settlers of the Hudson Valley, New York. The story would be adapted to film in 1922,[34] in 1949 as the animated The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad,[35] and again in 1999.[36] Throughout the evolution of the goth subculture, classic Romantic, Gothic and horror literature has played a significant role. E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), Edgar Allan Poe[37] (1809–1849), Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867),[37] H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and other tragic and Romantic writers have become as emblematic of the subculture[38] as the use of dark eyeliner or dressing in black. Baudelaire, in fact, in his preface to Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) penned lines that could serve as a sort of goth malediction:[39]     C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,     Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.     Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,     —Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère!     It is Boredom! — an eye brimming with an involuntary tear,     He dreams of the gallows while smoking his water-pipe.     You know him, reader, this delicate monster,     —Hypocrite reader,—my twin,—my brother! Visual art influences The gothic subculture has influenced different artists—not only musicians—but also painters and photographers. In particular their work is based on mystic, morbid and romantic motifs. In photography and painting the spectrum varies from erotic artwork to romantic images of vampires or ghosts. There is a marked preference for dark colours and sentiments, similar to Gothic fiction. At the end of the 19th century, painters like John Everett Millais and John Ruskin invented a new kind of Gothic.[40] 20th century influences [icon]    This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2017) Some people credit Jalacy "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins, perhaps best known for his 1956 song "I Put A Spell on You", as a foundation of modern goth style and music.[41] Some people credit the band Bauhaus' first single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", released in August 1979, with the start of goth subculture.[9] In the early 90s, Jack Off Jill, fronted by vocalist Jessicka, pioneered the 'Riot Goth' sound, combining elements of the goth and riot grrrl genres. Through their lyrics, the band tackled issues such as misogyny and racism, giving them significant underground appeal.[42][43][26] 21st century influences [icon]    This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2017) The British sitcom The IT Crowd featured a recurring goth character named Richmond Avenal, played by Noel Fielding. Fielding said in an interview that he himself had been a goth at age fifteen and that he had a series of goth girlfriends. This was the first time he dabbled in makeup. Fielding said that he loved his girlfriends dressing him up.[44] The game Visigoths vs. Mall Goths (2020) by Lucian Kahn is about "two versions of Goths – the ancient Roman peoples and the black-clad teenagers" and is set in LA in the 1990s.[45] Characteristics of the scene Icons Goth icons include several bandleaders: Siouxsie Sioux, of Siouxsie and the Banshees; Robert Smith, of the Cure; Peter Murphy, of Bauhaus; Dave Vanian, of The Damned; Rozz Williams, of Christian Death; Olli Wisdom, leader of the band Specimen[46] and keyboardist Jonathan Melton aka Jonny Slut, who evolved the Batcave style.[47] Nick Cave was dubbed as "the grand lord of gothic lushness".[48] Fashion Main article: Gothic fashion Influences One female role model is Theda Bara, the 1910s femme fatale known for her dark eyeshadow.[49][50] In 1977, Karl Lagerfeld hosted the Soirée Moratoire Noir party, specifying "tenue tragique noire absolument obligatoire" (black tragic dress absolutely required).[51] The event included elements associated with leatherman style.[51] Siouxsie Sioux was particularly influential on the dress style of the gothic rock scene; Paul Morley of NME described Siouxsie and the Banshees' 1980 gig at Futurama: "[Siouxsie was] modeling her newest outfit, the one that will influence how all the girls dress over the next few months. About half the girls at Leeds had used Sioux as a basis for their appearance, hair to ankle".[52] Robert Smith,[53] Musidora, Bela Lugosi,[54] Bettie Page, Vampira, Morticia Addams,[50] Nico, Rozz Williams, David Bowie[55] and Lux Interior[55] are also style icons. The 1980s established designers such as Drew Bernstein of Lip Service, and the 1990s saw a surge of US-based gothic fashion designers, many of whom continue to evolve the style to the present day. Style magazines such as Gothic Beauty have given repeat features to a select few gothic fashion designers who began their labels in the 1990s, such as Kambriel, Rose Mortem, and Tyler Ondine of Heavy Red.[56] American model Gabbriette who has been known for her goth aesthetic, has been at the forefront of what has been dubbed the "Succubus Chic" trend of 2023.[57][58][59][60] Styling Gothic fashion is marked by conspicuously dark, antiquated and homogeneous features. It is stereotyped as eerie, mysterious, complex and exotic.[61] A dark, sometimes morbid fashion and style of dress,[55] typical gothic fashion includes colored black hair and black period-styled clothing.[55] Both male and female goths can wear dark eyeliner and dark fingernail polish, most especially black. Styles are often borrowed from punk fashion and—more currently—from the Victorian and Elizabethan periods.[55] It also frequently expresses pagan, occult or other religious imagery.[62] Gothic fashion and styling may also feature silver jewelry and piercings. Ted Polhemus described goth fashion as a "profusion of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather tinged with scarlet or purple, accessorized with tightly laced corsets, gloves, precarious stilettos and silver jewelry depicting religious or occult themes".[63] Of the male "goth look", goth historian Pete Scathe draws a distinction between the Sid Vicious archetype of black spiky hair and black leather jacket in contrast to the gender ambiguous individuals wearing makeup. The first is the early goth gig-going look, which was essentially punk, whereas the second evolved into the Batcave nightclub look. Early goth gigs were often very hectic affairs, and the audience dressed accordingly. In contrast to the LARP-based Victorian and Elizabethan pomposity of the 2000s, the more Romantic side of 1980s trad-goth—mainly represented by women—was characterized by new wave/post-punk-oriented hairstyles (both long and short, partly shaved and teased) and street-compliant clothing, including black frill blouses, midi dresses or tea-length skirts, and floral lace tights, Dr. Martens, spike heels (pumps), and pointed toe buckle boots (winklepickers), sometimes supplemented with accessories such as bracelets, chokers and bib necklaces. This style, retroactively referred to as Ethergoth, took its inspiration from Siouxsie Sioux and mid-1980s musicians from the 4AD roster like Elizabeth Fraser and Lisa Gerrard.[64] The New York Times noted: "The costumes and ornaments are a glamorous cover for the genre's somber themes. In the world of Goth, nature itself lurks as a malign protagonist, causing flesh to rot, rivers to flood, monuments to crumble and women to turn into slatterns, their hair streaming and lipstick askew".[61] Cintra Wilson declares that the origins of the dark romantic style are found in the "Victorian cult of mourning".[65] Valerie Steele is an expert in the history of the style.[65] Reciprocity Goth fashion has a reciprocal relationship with the fashion world. In the later part of the first decade of the 21st century, designers such as Alexander McQueen,[65][66][67] Anna Sui,[68] Rick Owens,[67] Gareth Pugh, Ann Demeulemeester, Philipp Plein, Hedi Slimane, John Richmond, John Galliano,[65][66][67] Olivier Theyskens[67][69] and Yohji Yamamoto[67] brought elements of goth to runways.[65] This was described as "Haute Goth" by Cintra Wilson in the New York Times.[65] Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean Paul Gaultier[61] and Christian Lacroix have also been associated with the fashion trend.[65][66] In Spring 2004, Riccardo Tisci, Jean Paul Gaultier, Raf Simons and Stefano Pilati dressed their models as "glamorous ghouls dressed in form-fitting suits and coal-tinted cocktail dresses".[69] Swedish designer Helena Horstedt and jewelry artist Hanna Hedman also practice a goth aesthetic. Films and television Main article: Gothic film     This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message Some of the early gothic rock and deathrock artists adopted traditional horror film images and drew on horror film soundtracks for inspiration. Their audiences responded by adopting appropriate dress and props. Use of standard horror film props such as swirling smoke, rubber bats, and cobwebs featured as gothic club décor from the beginning in The Batcave. Such references in bands' music and images were originally tongue-in-cheek, but as time went on, bands and members of the subculture took the connection more seriously. As a result, morbid, supernatural and occult themes became more noticeably serious in the subculture. The interconnection between horror and goth was highlighted in its early days by The Hunger, a 1983 vampire film starring David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. The film featured gothic rock group Bauhaus performing Bela Lugosi's Dead in a nightclub. Tim Burton created a storybook atmosphere filled with darkness and shadow in some of his films like Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992) and the stop motion films The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which was produced/co-written by Burton, and Corpse Bride (2005), which he co-produced. The Nickelodeon cartoon Invader Zim is also based on the goth subculture. As the subculture became well-established, the connection between goth and horror fiction became almost a cliché, with goths quite likely to appear as characters in horror novels and film. For example, The Craft, The Crow, The Matrix and Underworld film series drew directly on goth music and style. The dark comedies Beetlejuice, The Faculty, American Beauty, Wedding Crashers, and a few episodes of the animated TV show South Park portray or parody the goth subculture. In South Park, several of the fictional schoolchildren are depicted as goths. The goth kids on the show are depicted as finding it annoying to be confused with the Hot Topic "vampire" kids from the episode "The Ungroundable" in season 12,[72][73] and even more frustrating to be compared with emo kids. The goth kids are usually depicted listening to gothic music, writing or reading Gothic poetry, drinking coffee, flipping their hair, and smoking.[74][75] Morticia Addams from The Addams Family created by Charles Addams is a fictional character and the mother in the Addams Family. Morticia was played by Carolyn Jones in the 1964 television show The Addams Family and by Anjelica Huston in the 1991 version, and voiced by Charlize Theron in 2019 animated film. A recurring sketch in the 1990s on NBC's Saturday Night Live was Goth Talk, in which a public access channel broadcast hosted by unpopular young goths would continually be interrupted by the more "normal" kids in school. The sketch featured series regulars Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon, and Chris Kattan. Books and magazines Main article: Gothic fiction A prominent American literary influence on the gothic scene was provided by Anne Rice's re-imagining of the vampire in 1976. In The Vampire Chronicles, Rice's characters were depicted as self-tormentors who struggled with alienation, loneliness, and the human condition. Not only did the characters torment themselves, but they also depicted a surreal world that focused on uncovering its splendour. These Chronicles assumed goth attitudes, but they were not intentionally created to represent the gothic subculture. Their romance, beauty, and erotic appeal attracted many goth readers, making her works popular from the 1980s through the 1990s.[76] While Goth has embraced Vampire literature both in its 19th century form and in its later incarnations, Rice's postmodern take on the vampire mythos has had a "special resonance" in the subculture. Her vampire novels feature intense emotions, period clothing, and "cultured decadence". Her vampires are socially alienated monsters, but they are also stunningly attractive. Rice's goth readers tend to envision themselves in much the same terms and view characters like Lestat de Lioncourt as role models.[32] Richard Wright's novel Native Son contains gothic imagery and themes that demonstrate the links between blackness and the gothic; themes and images of "premonitions, curses, prophecies, spells, veils, demonic possessions, graves, skeletons" are present, suggesting gothic influence.[77] Other classic themes of the gothic are present in the novel, such as transgression and unstable identities of race, class, gender, and nationality.[77] The re-imagining of the vampire continued with the release of Poppy Z. Brite's book Lost Souls in October 1992. Despite the fact that Brite's first novel was criticized by some mainstream sources for allegedly "lack[ing] a moral center: neither terrifyingly malevolent supernatural creatures nor (like Anne Rice's protagonists) tortured souls torn between good and evil, these vampires simply add blood-drinking to the amoral panoply of drug abuse, problem drinking and empty sex practiced by their human counterparts",[78] many of these so-called "human counterparts" identified with the teen angst and goth music references therein, keeping the book in print. Upon release of a special 10th anniversary edition of Lost Souls, Publishers Weekly—the same periodical that criticized the novel's "amorality" a decade prior—deemed it a "modern horror classic" and acknowledged that Brite established a "cult audience".[79] The 2002 release 21st Century Goth by Mick Mercer, an author, noted music journalist and leading historian of gothic rock,[80][81][82] explored the modern state of the goth scene around the world, including South America, Japan, and mainland Asia. His previous 1997 release, Hex Files: The Goth Bible, similarly took an international look at the subculture. In the US, Propaganda was a gothic subculture magazine founded in 1982. In Italy, Ver Sacrum covers the Italian goth scene, including fashion, sexuality, music, art and literature. Some magazines, such as the now-defunct Dark Realms[83] and Goth Is Dead included goth fiction and poetry. Other magazines cover fashion (e.g., Gothic Beauty); music (e.g., Severance) or culture and lifestyle (e.g., Althaus e-zine). On 31 October 2011, ECW Press published the Encyclopedia Gothica[84] written by author and poet Liisa Ladouceur with illustrations done by Gary Pullin.[85][86][87][88] This non-fiction book describes over 600 words and phrases relevant to Goth subculture. Brian Craddock's 2017 novel Eucalyptus Goth[89] charts a year in the life of a household of 20-somethings in Brisbane, Australia. The central characters are deeply entrenched in the local gothic subculture, with the book exploring themes relevant to the characters, notably unemployment, mental health, politics, and relationships.[90] In 2023, several books about the music genre and the subculture, were released. John Robb's The Art of Darkness: The History of Goth was hailed in The Times as a "new magestrial survey",[91] and Cathi Unsworth's Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth was praised in Mojo as a "superb history of the dark and all its risings".[92] Graphic art Further information: New Gothic Visual contemporary graphic artists with this aesthetic include Gerald Brom, Dave McKean, and Trevor Brown as well as illustrators Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, Lorin Morgan-Richards, and James O'Barr. The artwork of Polish surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński is often described as gothic.[93] British artist Anne Sudworth published a book on gothic art in 2007." (wikipedia.org) "Halloween or Hallowe'en[7][8] (less commonly known as Allhalloween,[9] All Hallows' Eve,[10] or All Saints' Eve)[11] is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It is at the beginning of the observance of Allhallowtide,[12] the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.[3][13][14][15] In popular culture, the day has become a celebration of horror, being associated with the macabre and supernatural.[16] One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which are believed to have pagan roots.[17][18][19][20] Some go further and suggest that Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallow's Day, along with its eve, by the early Church.[21] Other academics believe Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallow's Day.[22][23][24][25] Celebrated in Ireland and Scotland for centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants took many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century,[26][27] and then through American influence various Halloween customs spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century.[16][28] Popular Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins or turnips into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, and watching horror or Halloween-themed films.[29] Some people practice the Christian observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead,[30][31][32] although it is a secular celebration for others.[33][34][35] Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.[36][37][38][39] Etymology The word Halloween or Hallowe'en ("Saints' evening"[40]) is of Christian origin;[41][42] a term equivalent to "All Hallows Eve" is attested in Old English.[43] The word hallowe[']en comes from the Scottish form of All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Hallows' Day):[44] even is the Scots term for "eve" or "evening",[45] and is contracted to e'en or een;[46] (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en became Hallowe'en. History Christian origins and historic customs Halloween is thought to have influences from Christian beliefs and practices.[47][48] The English word 'Halloween' comes from "All Hallows' Eve", being the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows' Day (All Saints' Day) on 1 November and All Souls' Day on 2 November.[49] Since the time of the early Church,[50] major feasts in Christianity (such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) had vigils that began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows'.[51][47] These three days are collectively called Allhallowtide and are a time when Western Christians honour all saints and pray for recently departed souls who have yet to reach Heaven. Commemorations of all saints and martyrs were held by several churches on various dates, mostly in springtime.[52] In 4th-century Roman Edessa it was held on 13 May, and on 13 May 609, Pope Boniface IV re-dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to "St Mary and all martyrs".[53] This was the date of Lemuria, an ancient Roman festival of the dead.[54] In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III (731–741) founded an oratory in St Peter's for the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors".[47][55] Some sources say it was dedicated on 1 November,[56] while others say it was on Palm Sunday in April 732.[57][58] By 800, there is evidence that churches in Ireland[59] and Northumbria were holding a feast commemorating all saints on 1 November.[60] Alcuin of Northumbria, a member of Charlemagne's court, may then have introduced this 1 November date in the Frankish Empire.[61] In 835, it became the official date in the Frankish Empire.[60] Some suggest this was due to Celtic influence, while others suggest it was a Germanic idea,[60] although it is claimed that both Germanic and Celtic-speaking peoples commemorated the dead at the beginning of winter.[62] They may have seen it as the most fitting time to do so, as it is a time of 'dying' in nature.[60][62] It is also suggested the change was made on the "practical grounds that Rome in summer could not accommodate the great number of pilgrims who flocked to it", and perhaps because of public health concerns over Roman Fever, which claimed a number of lives during Rome's sultry summers.[63][47] On All Hallows' Eve, Christians in some parts of the world visit cemeteries to pray and place flowers and candles on the graves of their loved ones.[64] Top: Christians in Bangladesh lighting candles on the headstone of a relative. Bottom: Lutheran Christians praying and lighting candles in front of the central crucifix of a graveyard. By the end of the 12th century, the celebration had become known as the holy days of obligation in Western Christianity and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for souls in purgatory. It was also "customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls".[65] The Allhallowtide custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls,[66] has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating.[67] The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century[68] and was found in parts of England, Wales, Flanders, Bavaria and Austria.[69] Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Allhallowtide, collecting soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers' friends and relatives. This was called "souling".[68][70][71] Soul cakes were also offered for the souls themselves to eat,[69] or the 'soulers' would act as their representatives.[72] As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating they were baked as alms.[73] Shakespeare mentions souling in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593).[74] While souling, Christians would carry "lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips", which could have originally represented souls of the dead;[75][76] jack-o'-lanterns were used to ward off evil spirits.[77][78] On All Saints' and All Souls' Day during the 19th century, candles were lit in homes in Ireland,[79] Flanders, Bavaria, and in Tyrol, where they were called "soul lights",[80] that served "to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes".[81] In many of these places, candles were also lit at graves on All Souls' Day.[80] In Brittany, libations of milk were poured on the graves of kinfolk,[69] or food would be left overnight on the dinner table for the returning souls;[80] a custom also found in Tyrol and parts of Italy.[82][80] Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh linked the wearing of costumes to the belief in vengeful ghosts: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes".[83] In the Middle Ages, churches in Europe that were too poor to display relics of martyred saints at Allhallowtide let parishioners dress up as saints instead.[84][85] Some Christians observe this custom at Halloween today.[86] Lesley Bannatyne believes this could have been a Christianization of an earlier pagan custom.[87] Many Christians in mainland Europe, especially in France, believed "that once a year, on Hallowe'en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival" known as the danse macabre, which was often depicted in church decoration.[88] Christopher Allmand and Rosamond McKitterick write in The New Cambridge Medieval History that the danse macabre urged Christians "not to forget the end of all earthly things".[89] The danse macabre was sometimes enacted in European village pageants and court masques, with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society", and this may be the origin of Halloween costume parties.[90][91][92][75] In Britain, these customs came under attack during the Reformation, as Protestants berated purgatory as a "popish" doctrine incompatible with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. State-sanctioned ceremonies associated with the intercession of saints and prayer for souls in purgatory were abolished during the Elizabethan reform, though All Hallow's Day remained in the English liturgical calendar to "commemorate saints as godly human beings".[93] For some Nonconformist Protestants, the theology of All Hallows' Eve was redefined; "souls cannot be journeying from Purgatory on their way to Heaven, as Catholics frequently believe and assert. Instead, the so-called ghosts are thought to be in actuality evil spirits".[94] Other Protestants believed in an intermediate state known as Hades (Bosom of Abraham).[95] In some localities, Catholics and Protestants continued souling, candlelit processions, or ringing church bells for the dead;[49][96] the Anglican church eventually suppressed this bell-ringing.[97] Mark Donnelly, a professor of medieval archaeology, and historian Daniel Diehl write that "barns and homes were blessed to protect people and livestock from the effect of witches, who were believed to accompany the malignant spirits as they traveled the earth".[98] After 1605, Hallowtide was eclipsed in England by Guy Fawkes Night (5 November), which appropriated some of its customs.[99] In England, the ending of official ceremonies related to the intercession of saints led to the development of new, unofficial Hallowtide customs. In 18th–19th century rural Lancashire, Catholic families gathered on hills on the night of All Hallows' Eve. One held a bunch of burning straw on a pitchfork while the rest knelt around him, praying for the souls of relatives and friends until the flames went out. This was known as teen'lay.[100] There was a similar custom in Hertfordshire, and the lighting of 'tindle' fires in Derbyshire.[101] Some suggested these 'tindles' were originally lit to "guide the poor souls back to earth".[102] In Scotland and Ireland, old Allhallowtide customs that were at odds with Reformed teaching were not suppressed as they "were important to the life cycle and rites of passage of local communities" and curbing them would have been difficult.[26] In parts of Italy until the 15th century, families left a meal out for the ghosts of relatives, before leaving for church services.[82] In 19th-century Italy, churches staged "theatrical re-enactments of scenes from the lives of the saints" on All Hallow's Day, with "participants represented by realistic wax figures".[82] In 1823, the graveyard of Holy Spirit Hospital in Rome presented a scene in which bodies of those who recently died were arrayed around a wax statue of an angel who pointed upward towards heaven.[82] In the same country, "parish priests went house-to-house, asking for small gifts of food which they shared among themselves throughout that night".[82] In Spain, they continue to bake special pastries called "bones of the holy" (Spanish: Huesos de Santo) and set them on graves.[103] At cemeteries in Spain and France, as well as in Latin America, priests lead Christian processions and services during Allhallowtide, after which people keep an all night vigil.[104] In 19th-century San Sebastián, there was a procession to the city cemetery at Allhallowtide, an event that drew beggars who "appeal[ed] to the tender recollections of one's deceased relations and friends" for sympathy. Gaelic folk influence Today's Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by folk customs and beliefs from the Celtic-speaking countries, some of which are believed to have pagan roots.[106] Jack Santino, a folklorist, writes that "there was throughout Ireland an uneasy truce existing between customs and beliefs associated with Christianity and those associated with religions that were Irish before Christianity arrived".[107] The origins of Halloween customs are typically linked to the Gaelic festival Samhain.[108] Samhain is one of the quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar and has been celebrated on 31 October – 1 November[109] in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.[110][111] A kindred festival has been held by the Brittonic Celts, called Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Kalan Gwav in Cornwall and Kalan Goañv in Brittany; a name meaning "first day of winter". For the Celts, the day ended and began at sunset; thus the festival begins the evening before 1 November by modern reckoning.[112] Samhain is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature. The names have been used by historians to refer to Celtic Halloween customs up until the 19th century,[113] and are still the Gaelic and Welsh names for Halloween. Samhain marked the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the 'darker half' of the year.[115][116] It was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned. This meant the Aos Sí, the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into this world and were particularly active.[117][118] Most scholars see them as "degraded versions of ancient gods [...] whose power remained active in the people's minds even after they had been officially replaced by later religious beliefs".[119] They were both respected and feared, with individuals often invoking the protection of God when approaching their dwellings.[120][121] At Samhain, the Aos Sí were appeased to ensure the people and livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink, or portions of the crops, were left outside for them.[122][123][124] The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality.[125] Places were set at the dinner table and by the fire to welcome them.[126] The belief that the souls of the dead return home on one night of the year and must be appeased seems to have ancient origins and is found in many cultures.[69] In 19th century Ireland, "candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this the eating, drinking, and games would begin".[127] Throughout Ireland and Britain, especially in the Celtic-speaking regions, the household festivities included divination rituals and games intended to foretell one's future, especially regarding death and marriage.[128] Apples and nuts were often used, and customs included apple bobbing, nut roasting, scrying or mirror-gazing, pouring molten lead or egg whites into water, dream interpretation, and others.[129] Special bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them. Their flames, smoke, and ashes were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers.[115] In some places, torches lit from the bonfire were carried sunwise around homes and fields to protect them.[113] It is suggested the fires were a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic – they mimicked the Sun and held back the decay and darkness of winter.[126][130][131] They were also used for divination and to ward off evil spirits.[77] In Scotland, these bonfires and divination games were banned by the church elders in some parishes.[132] In Wales, bonfires were also lit to "prevent the souls of the dead from falling to earth".[133] Later, these bonfires "kept away the devil".[134] photograph From at least the 16th century,[136] the festival included mumming and guising in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales.[137] This involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food. It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf, similar to 'souling'. Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them.[138] In parts of southern Ireland, the guisers included a hobby horse. A man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses – some of which had pagan overtones – in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune.[139] In Scotland, youths went house-to-house with masked, painted or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed.[137] F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient festival included people in costume representing the spirits, and that faces were marked or blackened with ashes from the sacred bonfire.[136] In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod.[137] In the late 19th and early 20th century, young people in Glamorgan and Orkney cross-dressed.[137] Elsewhere in Europe, mumming was part of other festivals, but in the Celtic-speaking regions, it was "particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers".[137] From at least the 18th century, "imitating malignant spirits" led to playing pranks in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. Wearing costumes and playing pranks at Halloween did not spread to England until the 20th century.[137] Pranksters used hollowed-out turnips or mangel wurzels as lanterns, often carved with grotesque faces.[137] By those who made them, the lanterns were variously said to represent the spirits,[137] or used to ward off evil spirits.[140][141] They were common in parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century,[137] as well as in Somerset (see Punkie Night). In the 20th century they spread to other parts of Britain and became generally known as jack-o'-lanterns.[137] Spread to North America Lesley Bannatyne and Cindy Ott write that Anglican colonists in the southern United States and Catholic colonists in Maryland "recognized All Hallow's Eve in their church calendars",[142][143] although the Puritans of New England strongly opposed the holiday, along with other traditional celebrations of the established Church, including Christmas.[144] Almanacs of the late 18th and early 19th century give no indication that Halloween was widely celebrated in North America.[26] It was not until after mass Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century that Halloween became a major holiday in America.[26] Most American Halloween traditions were inherited from the Irish and Scots,[27][145] though "In Cajun areas, a nocturnal Mass was said in cemeteries on Halloween night. Candles that had been blessed were placed on graves, and families sometimes spent the entire night at the graveside".[146] Originally confined to these immigrant communities, it was gradually assimilated into mainstream society and was celebrated coast to coast by people of all social, racial, and religious backgrounds by the early 20th century.[147] Then, through American influence, these Halloween traditions spread to many other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century, including to mainland Europe and some parts of the Far East. Symbols At Halloween, yards, public spaces, and some houses may be decorated with traditionally macabre symbols including skeletons, ghosts, cobwebs, headstones, and witches. Development of artifacts and symbols associated with Halloween formed over time. Jack-o'-lanterns are traditionally carried by guisers on All Hallows' Eve in order to frighten evil spirits.[76][149] There is a popular Irish Christian folktale associated with the jack-o'-lantern,[150] which in folklore is said to represent a "soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell":[151]     On route home after a night's drinking, Jack encounters the Devil and tricks him into climbing a tree. A quick-thinking Jack etches the sign of the cross into the bark, thus trapping the Devil. Jack strikes a bargain that Satan can never claim his soul. After a life of sin, drink, and mendacity, Jack is refused entry to heaven when he dies. Keeping his promise, the Devil refuses to let Jack into hell and throws a live coal straight from the fires of hell at him. It was a cold night, so Jack places the coal in a hollowed out turnip to stop it from going out, since which time Jack and his lantern have been roaming looking for a place to rest.[152] In Ireland and Scotland, the turnip has traditionally been carved during Halloween,[153][154] but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which is both much softer and much larger, making it easier to carve than a turnip.[153] The American tradition of carving pumpkins is recorded in 1837[155] and was originally associated with harvest time in general, not becoming specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.[156] Decorated house in Weatherly, Pennsylvania The modern imagery of Halloween comes from many sources, including Christian eschatology, national customs, works of Gothic and horror literature (such as the novels Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and Dracula) and classic horror films such as Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932).[157][158] Imagery of the skull, a reference to Golgotha in the Christian tradition, serves as "a reminder of death and the transitory quality of human life" and is consequently found in memento mori and vanitas compositions;[159] skulls have therefore been commonplace in Halloween, which touches on this theme.[160] Traditionally, the back walls of churches are "decorated with a depiction of the Last Judgment, complete with graves opening and the dead rising, with a heaven filled with angels and a hell filled with devils", a motif that has permeated the observance of this triduum.[161] One of the earliest works on the subject of Halloween is from Scottish poet John Mayne, who, in 1780, made note of pranks at Halloween; "What fearfu' pranks ensue!", as well as the supernatural associated with the night, "bogles" (ghosts),[162] influencing Robert Burns' "Halloween" (1785).[163] Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween. Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, and mythical monsters.[164] Black cats, which have been long associated with witches, are also a common symbol of Halloween. Black, orange, and sometimes purple are Halloween's traditional colors.[165] Trick-or-treating and guising Main article: Trick-or-treating Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The word "trick" implies a "threat" to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given.[67] The practice is said to have roots in the medieval practice of mumming, which is closely related to souling.[166] John Pymm wrote that "many of the feast days associated with the presentation of mumming plays were celebrated by the Christian Church."[167] These feast days included All Hallows' Eve, Christmas, Twelfth Night and Shrove Tuesday.[168][169] Mumming practiced in Germany, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe,[170] involved masked persons in fancy dress who "paraded the streets and entered houses to dance or play dice in silence". In England, from the medieval period,[172] up until the 1930s,[173] people practiced the Christian custom of souling on Halloween, which involved groups of soulers, both Protestant and Catholic,[96] going from parish to parish, begging the rich for soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the souls of the givers and their friends.[70] In the Philippines, the practice of souling is called Pangangaluluwa and is practiced on All Hallow's Eve among children in rural areas.[29] People drape themselves in white cloths to represent souls and then visit houses, where they sing in return for prayers and sweets.[29] In Scotland and Ireland, guising – children disguised in costume going from door to door for food or coins – is a secular Halloween custom.[174] It 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.[154][175] In Ireland, the most popular phrase for kids to shout (until the 2000s) was "Help the Halloween Party".[174] The practice of guising at Halloween in North America was first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood.[176] American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book-length history of Halloween in the US; The Book of Hallowe'en (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America".[177] In her book, Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic; "Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Halloween customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries".[178] While the first reference to "guising" in North America occurs in 1911, another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.[179] The earliest known use in print of the term "trick or treat" appears in 1927, in the Blackie Herald, of Alberta, Canada. The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but not trick-or-treating.[181] Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice in North America until the 1930s, with the first US appearances of the term in 1934,[182] and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.[183] A popular variant of trick-or-treating, known as trunk-or-treating (or Halloween tailgating), occurs when "children are offered treats from the trunks of cars parked in a church parking lot", or sometimes, a school parking lot.[103][184] In a trunk-or-treat event, the trunk (boot) of each automobile is decorated with a certain theme,[185] such as those of children's literature, movies, scripture, and job roles.[186] Trunk-or-treating has grown in popularity due to its perception as being more safe than going door to door, a point that resonates well with parents, as well as the fact that it "solves the rural conundrum in which homes [are] built a half-mile apart".[187][188] Costumes Main article: Halloween costume Halloween costumes were traditionally modeled after figures such as vampires, ghosts, skeletons, scary looking witches, and devils.[67] Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses. Dressing up in costumes and going "guising" was prevalent in Scotland and Ireland at Halloween by the late 19th century.[154] A Scottish term, the tradition is called "guising" because of the disguises or costumes worn by the children.[175] In Ireland and Scotland, the masks are known as 'false faces',[41][189] a term recorded in Ayr, Scotland in 1890 by a Scot describing guisers: "I had mind it was Halloween . . . the wee callans (boys) were at it already, rinning aboot wi’ their fause-faces (false faces) on and their bits o’ turnip lanthrons (lanterns) in their haun (hand)".[41] Costuming became popular for Halloween parties in the US in the early 20th century, as often for adults as for children, and when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in Canada and the US in the 1920s and 1930s.[180][190] Eddie J. Smith, in his book Halloween, Hallowed is Thy Name, offers a religious perspective to the wearing of costumes on All Hallows' Eve, suggesting that by dressing up as creatures "who at one time caused us to fear and tremble", people are able to poke fun at Satan "whose kingdom has been plundered by our Saviour". Images of skeletons and the dead are traditional decorations used as memento mori.[191][192] The annual New York Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, is the world's largest Halloween parade, with millions of spectators annually. "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" is a fundraising program to support UNICEF,[67] a United Nations Programme that provides humanitarian aid to children in developing countries. Started as a local event in a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood in 1950 and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools (or in modern times, corporate sponsors like Hallmark, at their licensed stores) to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small-change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $118 million for UNICEF since its inception. In Canada, in 2006, UNICEF decided to discontinue their Halloween collection boxes, citing safety and administrative concerns; after consultation with schools, they instead redesigned the program.[193][194] The yearly New York's Village Halloween Parade was begun in 1974; it is the world's largest Halloween parade and America's only major nighttime parade, attracting more than 60,000 costumed participants, two million spectators, and a worldwide television audience.[195] Since the late 2010s, ethnic stereotypes as costumes have increasingly come under scrutiny in the United States.[196][197][198] Pet costumes According to a 2018 report from the National Retail Federation, 30 million Americans will spend an estimated $480 million on Halloween costumes for their pets in 2018. This is up from an estimated $200 million in 2010. The most popular costumes for pets are the pumpkin, followed by the hot dog, and the bumblebee in third place.[199] Games and other activities There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween. Some of these games originated as divination rituals or ways of foretelling one's future, especially regarding death, marriage and children. During the Middle Ages, these rituals were done by a "rare few" in rural communities as they were considered to be "deadly serious" practices.[200] In recent centuries, these divination games have been "a common feature of the household festivities" in Ireland and Britain.[128] They often involve apples and hazelnuts. In Celtic mythology, apples were strongly associated with the Otherworld and immortality, while hazelnuts were associated with divine wisdom.[201] Some also suggest that they derive from Roman practices in celebration of Pomona. The following activities were a common feature of Halloween in Ireland and Britain during the 17th–20th centuries. Some have become more widespread and continue to be popular today. One common game is apple bobbing or dunking (which may be called "dooking" in Scotland)[202] in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water and the participants must use only their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drive the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity that inevitably leads to a sticky face. Another once-popular game involves hanging a small wooden rod from the ceiling at head height, with a lit candle on one end and an apple hanging from the other. The rod is spun round and everyone takes turns to try to catch the apple with their teeth. Several of the traditional activities from Ireland and Britain involve foretelling one's future partner or spouse. An apple would be peeled in one long strip, then the peel tossed over the shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name.[204][205] Two hazelnuts would be roasted near a fire; one named for the person roasting them and the other for the person they desire. If the nuts jump away from the heat, it is a bad sign, but if the nuts roast quietly it foretells a good match.[206][207] A salty oatmeal bannock would be baked; the person would eat it in three bites and then go to bed in silence without anything to drink. This is said to result in a dream in which their future spouse offers them a drink to quench their thirst.[208] Unmarried women were told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror.[209] The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards[210] from the late 19th century and early 20th century. Another popular Irish game was known as púicíní ("blindfolds"); a person would be blindfolded and then would choose between several saucers. The item in the saucer would provide a hint as to their future: a ring would mean that they would marry soon; clay, that they would die soon, perhaps within the year; water, that they would emigrate; rosary beads, that they would take Holy Orders (become a nun, priest, monk, etc.); a coin, that they would become rich; a bean, that they would be poor.[211][212][213][214] The game features prominently in the James Joyce short story "Clay" (1914). In Ireland and Scotland, items would be hidden in food – usually a cake, barmbrack, cranachan, champ or colcannon – and portions of it served out at random. A person's future would be foretold by the item they happened to find; for example, a ring meant marriage and a coin meant wealth.[218] Up until the 19th century, the Halloween bonfires were also used for divination in parts of Scotland, Wales and Brittany. When the fire died down, a ring of stones would be laid in the ashes, one for each person. In the morning, if any stone was mislaid it was said that the person it represented would not live out the year.[113] In Mexico, children create altars to invite the spirits of deceased children to return (angelitos).[219] Telling ghost stories, listening to Halloween-themed songs and watching horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of television series and Halloween-themed specials (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before Halloween, while new horror films are often released before Halloween to take advantage of the holiday. Haunted attractions Main article: Haunted attraction (simulated) Humorous tombstones in front of a house in California Haunted attractions are entertainment venues designed to thrill and scare patrons. Most attractions are seasonal Halloween businesses that may include haunted houses, corn mazes, and hayrides,[220] and the level of sophistication of the effects has risen as the industry has grown. The first recorded purpose-built haunted attraction was the Orton and Spooner Ghost House, which opened in 1915 in Liphook, England. This attraction actually most closely resembles a carnival fun house, powered by steam.[221][222] The House still exists, in the Hollycombe Steam Collection. It was during the 1930s, about the same time as trick-or-treating, that Halloween-themed haunted houses first began to appear in America. It was in the late 1950s that haunted houses as a major attraction began to appear, focusing first on California. Sponsored by the Children's Health Home Junior Auxiliary, the San Mateo Haunted House opened in 1957. The San Bernardino Assistance League Haunted House opened in 1958. Home haunts began appearing across the country during 1962 and 1963. In 1964, the San Manteo Haunted House opened, as well as the Children's Museum Haunted House in Indianapolis.[223] The haunted house as an American cultural icon can be attributed to the opening of The Haunted Mansion in Disneyland on 12 August 1969.[224] Knott's Berry Farm began hosting its own Halloween night attraction, Knott's Scary Farm, which opened in 1973.[225] Evangelical Christians adopted a form of these attractions by opening one of the first "hell houses" in 1972.[226] The first Halloween haunted house run by a nonprofit organization was produced in 1970 by the Sycamore-Deer Park Jaycees in Clifton, Ohio. It was cosponsored by WSAI, an AM radio station broadcasting out of Cincinnati, Ohio. It was last produced in 1982.[227] Other Jaycees followed suit with their own versions after the success of the Ohio house. The March of Dimes copyrighted a "Mini haunted house for the March of Dimes" in 1976 and began fundraising through their local chapters by conducting haunted houses soon after. Although they apparently quit supporting this type of event nationally sometime in the 1980s, some March of Dimes haunted houses have persisted until today.[228] On the evening of 11 May 1984, in Jackson Township, New Jersey, the Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure caught fire. As a result of the fire, eight teenagers perished.[229] The backlash to the tragedy was a tightening of regulations relating to safety, building codes and the frequency of inspections of attractions nationwide. The smaller venues, especially the nonprofit attractions, were unable to compete financially, and the better funded commercial enterprises filled the vacuum.[230][231] Facilities that were once able to avoid regulation because they were considered to be temporary installations now had to adhere to the stricter codes required of permanent attractions.[232][233][234] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, theme parks became a notable figure in the Halloween business. Six Flags Fright Fest began in 1986 and Universal Studios Florida began Halloween Horror Nights in 1991. Knott's Scary Farm experienced a surge in attendance in the 1990s as a result of America's obsession with Halloween as a cultural event. Theme parks have played a major role in globalizing the holiday. Universal Studios Singapore and Universal Studios Japan both participate, while Disney now mounts Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party events at its parks in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo, as well as in the United States.[235] The theme park haunts are by far the largest, both in scale and attendance.[236] Food Pumpkins for sale during Halloween On All Hallows' Eve, many Western Christian denominations encourage abstinence from meat, giving rise to a variety of vegetarian foods associated with this day.[237] A candy apple Because in the Northern Hemisphere Halloween comes in the wake of the yearly apple harvest, candy apples (known as toffee apples outside North America), caramel apples or taffy apples are common Halloween treats made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts. At one time, candy apples were commonly given to trick-or-treating children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples in the United States.[238] While there is evidence of such incidents,[239] relative to the degree of reporting of such cases, actual cases involving malicious acts are extremely rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices were rampant because of the mass media. At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free X-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy.[240] One custom that persists in modern-day Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays, the purchase) of a barmbrack (Irish: báirín breac), which is a light fruitcake, into which a plain ring, a coin, and other charms are placed before baking.[241] It is considered fortunate to be the lucky one who finds it.[241] It has also been said that those who get a ring will find their true love in the ensuing year. This is similar to the tradition of king cake at the festival of Epiphany. Halloween-themed foods are also produced by companies in the lead up to the night, for example Cadbury releasing Goo Heads (similar to Creme Eggs) in spooky wrapping. List of foods associated with Halloween:     Barmbrack (Ireland)     Bonfire toffee (Great Britain)     Candy apples/toffee apples (Great Britain and Ireland)     Candy apples, candy corn, candy pumpkins (North America)     Chocolate     Monkey nuts (peanuts in their shells) (Ireland and Scotland)     Caramel apples     Caramel corn     Colcannon (Ireland; see below)     Halloween cake     Sweets/candy     Novelty candy shaped like skulls, pumpkins, bats, worms, etc.     Roasted pumpkin seeds     Roasted sweet corn     Soul cakes     Pumpkin pie Christian observances On Hallowe'en (All Hallows' Eve), in Poland, believers were once taught to pray out loud as they walk through the forests in order that the souls of the dead might find comfort; in Spain, Christian priests in tiny villages toll their church bells in order to remind their congregants to remember the dead on All Hallows' Eve.[243] In Ireland, and among immigrants in Canada, a custom includes the Christian practice of abstinence, keeping All Hallows' Eve as a meat-free day and serving pancakes or colcannon instead.[244] The Christian Church traditionally observed Hallowe'en through a vigil. Worshippers prepared themselves for feasting on the following All Saints' Day with prayers and fasting.[245] This church service is known as the Vigil of All Hallows or the Vigil of All Saints;[246][247] an initiative known as Night of Light seeks to further spread the Vigil of All Hallows throughout Christendom.[248][249] After the service, "suitable festivities and entertainments" often follow, as well as a visit to the graveyard or cemetery, where flowers and candles are often placed in preparation for All Hallows' Day.[250][251] In England, Light Parties are organized by churches after worship services on Halloween with the focus on Jesus as the Light of the World.[252] In Finland, because so many people visit the cemeteries on All Hallows' Eve to light votive candles there, they "are known as valomeri, or seas of light". Today, Christian attitudes towards Halloween are diverse. In the Anglican Church, some dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions associated with All Hallow's Eve.[254][255] Some of these practices include praying, fasting and attending worship services.[1][4][5]     O LORD our God, increase, we pray thee, and multiply upon us the gifts of thy grace: that we, who do prevent the glorious festival of all thy Saints, may of thee be enabled joyfully to follow them in all virtuous and godly living. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. —Collect of the Vigil of All Saints, The Anglican Breviary Other Protestant Christians also celebrate All Hallows' Eve as Reformation Day, a day to remember the Protestant Reformation, alongside All Hallow's Eve or independently from it.[257] This is because Martin Luther is said to have nailed his Ninety-five Theses to All Saints' Church in Wittenberg on All Hallows' Eve.[258] Often, "Harvest Festivals" or "Reformation Festivals" are held on All Hallows' Eve, in which children dress up as Bible characters or Reformers.[259] In addition to distributing candy to children who are trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en, many Christians also provide gospel tracts to them. One organization, the American Tract Society, stated that around 3 million gospel tracts are ordered from them alone for Hallowe'en celebrations.[260] Others order Halloween-themed Scripture Candy to pass out to children on this day. Some Christians feel concerned about the modern celebration of Halloween because they feel it trivializes – or celebrates – paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs.[263] Father Gabriele Amorth, an exorcist in Rome, has said, "if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."[264] In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on Halloween.[265] Similarly, many contemporary Protestant churches view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up, play games, and get candy for free. To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage.[266] Christian minister Sam Portaro wrote that Halloween is about using "humor and ridicule to confront the power of death".[267] In the Roman Catholic Church, Halloween's Christian connection is acknowledged, and Halloween celebrations are common in many Catholic parochial schools, such as in the United States,[268][269] while schools throughout Ireland also close for the Halloween break.[270][271] Many fundamentalist and evangelical churches use "Hell houses" and comic-style tracts in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism.[272] Others consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith due to its putative origins in the Festival of the Dead celebration.[273] Indeed, even though Eastern Orthodox Christians observe All Hallows' Day on the First Sunday after Pentecost, the Eastern Orthodox Church recommends the observance of Vespers or a Paraklesis on the Western observance of All Hallows' Eve, out of the pastoral need to provide an alternative to popular celebrations.[274] Analogous celebrations and perspectives Judaism Main article: Jews and Halloween According to Alfred J. Kolatch in the Second Jewish Book of Why, in Judaism, Halloween is not permitted by Jewish Halakha because it violates Leviticus 18:3, which forbids Jews from partaking in gentile customs. Many Jews observe Yizkor communally four times a year, which is vaguely similar to the observance of Allhallowtide in Christianity, in the sense that prayers are said for both "martyrs and for one's own family".[275] Nevertheless, many American Jews celebrate Halloween, disconnected from its Christian origins.[276] Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser has said that "There is no religious reason why contemporary Jews should not celebrate Halloween" while Orthodox Rabbi Michael Broyde has argued against Jews' observing the holiday.[277] Purim has sometimes been compared to Halloween, in part due to some observants wearing costumes, especially of Biblical figures described in the Purim narrative.[278] Islam Sheikh Idris Palmer, author of A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam, has ruled that Muslims should not participate in Halloween, stating that "participation in Halloween is worse than participation in Christmas, Easter, ... it is more sinful than congratulating the Christians for their prostration to the crucifix".[279] It has also been ruled to be haram by the National Fatwa Council of Malaysia because of its alleged pagan roots stating "Halloween is celebrated using a humorous theme mixed with horror to entertain and resist the spirit of death that influence humans".[280][281] Dar Al-Ifta Al-Missriyyah disagrees provided the celebration is not referred to as an 'eid' and that behaviour remains in line with Islamic principles.[282] Hinduism Hindus remember the dead during the festival of Pitru Paksha, during which Hindus pay homage to and perform a ceremony "to keep the souls of their ancestors at rest". It is celebrated in the Hindu month of Bhadrapada, usually in mid-September.[283] The celebration of the Hindu festival Diwali sometimes conflicts with the date of Halloween; but some Hindus choose to participate in the popular customs of Halloween.[284] Other Hindus, such as Soumya Dasgupta, have opposed the celebration on the grounds that Western holidays like Halloween have "begun to adversely affect our indigenous festivals".[285] Neopaganism There is no consistent rule or view on Halloween amongst those who describe themselves as Neopagans or Wiccans. Some Neopagans do not observe Halloween, but instead observe Samhain on 1 November,[286] some neopagans do enjoy Halloween festivities, stating that one can observe both "the solemnity of Samhain in addition to the fun of Halloween". Some neopagans are opposed to the celebration of Hallowe'en, stating that it "trivializes Samhain",[287] and "avoid Halloween, because of the interruptions from trick or treaters".[288] The Manitoban writes that "Wiccans don't officially celebrate Halloween, despite the fact that 31 Oct. will still have a star beside it in any good Wiccan's day planner. Starting at sundown, Wiccans celebrate a holiday known as Samhain. Samhain actually comes from old Celtic traditions and is not exclusive to Neopagan religions like Wicca. While the traditions of this holiday originate in Celtic countries, modern day Wiccans don't try to historically replicate Samhain celebrations. Some traditional Samhain rituals are still practised, but at its core, the period is treated as a time to celebrate darkness and the dead – a possible reason why Samhain can be confused with Halloween celebrations."[286] Geography Main article: Geography of Halloween The traditions and importance of Halloween vary greatly among countries that observe it. In Scotland and Ireland, traditional Halloween customs include children dressing up in costume going "guising", holding parties, while other practices in Ireland include lighting bonfires, and having firework displays.[174][289][290] In Brittany children would play practical jokes by setting candles inside skulls in graveyards to frighten visitors.[291] Mass transatlantic immigration in the 19th century popularized Halloween in North America, and celebration in the United States and Canada has had a significant impact on how the event is observed in other nations.[174] This larger North American influence, particularly in iconic and commercial elements, has extended to places such as Brazil, Ecuador, Chile,[292] Australia,[293] New Zealand,[294] (most) continental Europe, Finland,[295] Japan, and other parts of East Asia.[16] Cost According to the National Retail Federation, Americans are expected to spend $12.2 billion on Halloween in 2023, up from $10.6 billion in 2022. Of this amount, $3.9 billion is projected to be spent on home decorations, up from $2.7 billion in 2019. The popularity of Halloween decorations has been growing in recent years, with retailers offering a wider range of increasingly elaborate and oversized decorations." (wikipedia.org)
  • Condition: Used
  • Condition: In good, pre-owned condition. Please see photos and description.
  • Pattern: Solid Color
  • Shape: Round
  • Occasion: Halloween
  • Size: Medium
  • Color: Black
  • Indoor/Outdoor: Indoor & Outdoor
  • Area of Use: Balcony, Porch
  • Material: Metal
  • Item Length: 8 in
  • Subject: Pumpkin
  • Brand: Unbranded
  • Type: Sculpture
  • Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original
  • Item Height: 8.625 in
  • Theme: Seasonal
  • Style: Gothic
  • Features: UV Resistant, Handmade
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: Unknown
  • Finish: Matt
  • Item Width: 8 in
  • Handmade: Yes

PicClick Insights - 8.5" WROUGHT IRON PUMPKIN Halloween 3D Metal Sculpture handmade black goth RARE PicClick Exclusive

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