Why Do We Celebrate Halloween?

Have you ever wondered why we dress up in costumes and ask our neighbors for candy?

Though Halloween dates back many centuries over many ancient cultures, the reasons and the ways in which mainstream cultures celebrate Halloween today is a far cry from its origins. And while some people choose not to acknowledge Halloween, many others anticipate its arrival and make a huge deal about celebrating what’s now considered a holiday. In these modern times, Halloween is mostly about dressing up, collecting delicious treats and being with friends and family, and that’s why you should celebrate Halloween too. But if that’s not enough of a reason, here are five more reasons to trick-or-treat this year.

Bonding

This is a great time to bond with your kids and connect with them. Ask them why they want to dress up as a doctor or a fireman or a superhero. Celebrate their creative side and fire-up their imagination. Whether you make a project out of creating a costume or just buy one at the store, you may be inspiring the next big actor or actress, the next queen of crafting or perhaps a costume designer. Who knows, you may even be pleasantly surprised to see that they want to emulate you. Besides, can you remember the last time you and the kids took a walk around the neighborhood together?

Sharing

When it comes to candy and goodies, you can teach kids the value of sharing by having them share their Halloween bounty with others. Sharing is a huge life lesson best learned early.

Teach them about trading and bartering with others as well.

Community

Community is important. It’s a huge self-identifier in your kids’ lives. Halloween allows kids to venture out beyond their walls and fences and get to know the world and people around them. Halloween is a great opportunity to widen their circle of familiar faces beyond just their friends at school. If you introduce them to friends and neighbors, they’ll know who is and isn’t a stranger. And while you’re at it, you can teach them that it’s never a good idea to take candy from strangers (another valuable lesson). For this reason, many people have Trunk-or-Treats with their schoolmates, church friends or they just stick to the neighborhoods they live in.

It’s Fun

Being a kid should be all about having fun—most of the time anyway. For that matter, having fun is a pretty necessary component to being a well-rounded earthling. Even the most incredibly driven workaholic needs a vacation from reality occasionally. Halloween is just that, an occasion. It’s a reason to get silly, eat stuff we may not normally eat, wear fun costumes and be a kid (whether we are one or not).

Spooky & Scary

Besides our love of having fun, we humans are also naturally curious creatures and therefore we are drawn to the mysterious and unexplained. In plain English, we are fascinated with things we can’t explain, so anything supernatural, scary or frightening appeals to our sense of wonder. Not everyone, but most of us love to be scared. We love the adrenaline rush we get from being frightened or surprised. When we watch a scary Halloween movie, we can almost feel our spider senses tingling, anticipating the next thrill and chill around the corner.

If your life includes children, Halloween can be extra fun, but as mentioned earlier, you don’t have to be a kid to have fun like one. Halloween is a social holiday where people can show off their alter-egos, share their favorite characters and even live out some innocent fantasies. Halloween is also just one more good reason to gather friends and have a party. All of these reasons and more are why you should celebrate Halloween this year and every year.