◎ Zhang Lizhong
On Halloween night, when the children "trick-or-treat" (trick-or-treat without sugar), there is also a tacit understanding of which one should take a detour and which one can make a lot of noise
When I first came to the United States, I almost always had to go to the countryside and follow the customs. After going through all the festivals, I found that the locals did not celebrate all festivals, and they had a very clear attitude about what festivals they had and how to live them, especially those with religious components.
For example, I thought Christmas was a national holiday, but in December, except in churches or people who are familiar with each other's religious beliefs, the common greeting is "Happy Holiday", not the "Merry Christmas" we are familiar with. The reason for this is that not all people need to celebrate the "birth of Jesus." In December, African Americans celebrate Kwanzaa, Jewish Americans celebrate Hanukkah, and people of other religions or no religion celebrate the New Year, with the phrase "Happy Holidays" including blessings for all holidays. If you rush to say "Merry Christmas" and get a "Happy Holidays" reply, you may subconsciously wonder if you have offended the other person.
The difference in American attitudes towards the holidays is most evident during Halloween. Like most Western festivals, Halloween originated as a religious event, it was originally a Roman Catholic festival with two themes: celebrating the harvest and scaring ghosts. With religious changes, some denominations began to explicitly not advocate Halloween. For example, my neighbor Janet's family, they are devout Christians, halloween is not a holiday for them. There are also some mild protestants who resist the ghost-related content of Halloween as "contrary to doctrine", but are willing to retain the joy of the harvest, so their Halloween decoration is generally composed of pumpkins, grains of wheat and other objects symbolizing the harvest. Of course, there are also some people who have pumpkins, ghosts, scarecrows, and black spiders in front of the house, and there are generally two kinds of people: one is a devout Catholic, whose attitude is to "keep the traditional original"; the other family chooses to ignore the religious elements of the festival and treat it as a day for adults and children to play freely.
On Halloween night, when the children "trick-or-treat" (trick-or-treat without sugar), there is also a tacit understanding of which one should take a detour and which one can make a lot of noise. Some people's homes, there is no decoration in front of the door, even if the light is on in the room, but the door lamp is not open. Such a family belongs to the "Halloween is not welcome", and the children should maintain respect and distance and take a detour. Another type of person, far away to see the porch lights are on, approaching the door in front of a carefully arranged small table, on which are placed all kinds of candy, this is the "please take it, do not disturb" signal. The children consciously took one or two of their favorite candy and left quietly, not ringing the doorbell to disturb the host's house. The third category, all kinds of "Halloween" decorations in front of the house and behind the house, the inside and outside of the house are brightly lit. In this kind of family, the children can rest assured that they can ring the doorbell to "trick the pie without giving sugar", and most of the owners who open the door are also dressed up on Halloween, holding candy and enthusiastically asking the children to take it. Especially childlike, will also give sugar (treat) at the same time, prank "trick" the children.
During the holidays in the United States, my other feeling is that the participation of young children in the festival is very high. Traditional festivals, in particular, have games and activities designed specifically for children. For example, in the recent Easter Egg Hunt game, adults will bring their children to prepare Easter eggs before the festival. In order to create surprises, adults will stuff small things into some "fake eggs", such as egg-shaped chocolates, coins or paper money, and then scatter these Easter eggs. On Easter Day, children carry small baskets in front of and behind the house to "hunt eggs", and every time they find one, they will emit cheerful laughter. When all the Easter eggs are recovered, adults and children will have a good time together, whether they win or lose.
Before Halloween, children spend a long time choosing, or even making, Halloween costumes themselves. Adults prepare candy, and some even set up a "haunted house" to give children candy, surprises and scares on Halloween. Before Christmas, children decorate Christmas trees, prepare wish lists, and write letters to Santa Claus. Adults send letters to any Santa Claus center, and the children receive a reply from Santa Claus. When they open santa's letter, they are as excited as opening Christmas presents. Even on Valentine's Day, which I thought had nothing to do with the children, the children had to carefully prepare love cards and small gifts, and usually prepared one for all the children in the class. On Valentine's Day, children also receive love cards and gifts from other children. Because Valentine's Day originally meant "the festival of love", and love should be cultivated from an early age. We have a boutique in the town, and the customers in the shop are usually women. One year, on the eve of Mother's Day, I went shopping in the store and saw a lot of big men with children in the store picking out gifts. My husband said that when he was a child, his father took him and his brother to prepare love cards and gifts for his mother, and now he takes his son to prepare for me.
When preparing for these festivals, children inevitably ask various questions, and when adults answer, they talk about the origin of different festivals. On the day of the festival, the fun of the ritual games and the surprise of receiving gifts make the children look forward to the arrival of the festival. In the laughter, love and tradition are passed down from generation to generation.