Boo!

I, in turn, have stopped trying to explain expatriate adult Americans’ delight in dressing up in silly costumes on that special night of the year. When first asked, my response was that back in our homeland, the occasion was more for children and involved an activity called “trick-or-treat.” As little girls, my best friend and I would plan our costumes and beg our mothers’ help in sewing and pinning pieces of leftover cloth or cutting up cardboard and wielding crayons to turn us into matching creatures of fantasy for the night; princesses, ghosts and even one year -- cereal boxes. We would take our paper bags and go house to house in the neighborhood, ringing the doorbells and calling out “Trick or treat!” Smiling adults would open the door, ready with a handful of candy or apples or oranges or pennies to toss into the bags we clutched open with both hands. Occasionally, we would vary our routine by shouting “Boo!” when the door opened. We’d challenge the treat givers to guess who we were. Of course, they pretended not to know.

At our young age, we were just having fun, not realizing we were following a long tradition rooted in ritual and belief. In England, Halloween was first called All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day in the Catholic Church. In Anglo-Saxon, the word “hallow” meant “sanctified.” However, the activities associated with it today date back more than 2,000 years ago to the Druidic practices of the British Isles. Oct. 31 was the last day of the Celtic calendar. It was a time for honoring the dead, for celebrating the harvest festival of Samhain (pronounced “sow-in” and meaning “summer’s end”) and for preparing for the winter months. Many British and American Halloween activities are derived from that ancient festival.

The Celts believed the souls of the dead roamed the streets on the night of Samhain. Since not all spirits were thought to be friendly, gifts and foodstuffs were left out to pacify the evil spirits and to ensure the next year’s crops would be plentiful. The foolish family which didn’t leave a treat might find itself the victim of a mischievous spirit’s trick, such as finding the milk cow stranded on the cottage roof. This custom evolved into trick-or-treating.

The modern custom of dressing up as witches, vampires, ghosts, werewolves and other frightening monsters derives from the old Celtic belief that the “evil ones” wouldn’t harm you if you were in disguise. A gentler take for the kids is to appear as pirates, fairies, clowns and superheroes, such as Batman and Superman.

Years ago, every Halloween, Chicago families sent their kids off to gather treats before darkness arrived, hoping there were no tricks involved. The main attraction after the early evening trick-or-treating was the party at the local grammar school. The usual dreaded prisoner camp of learning was transformed into a palace of Fun For All. Prizes were won for the Cake Walk held in the kindergarten room (the prize being a cake donated by a dedicated mom), the coloring contest and a grand prize for best costume. A center of attraction and hilarity was the big metal tub of water for the apple bob.

I always found bobbing for apples a silly sort of game. My unruly hair got soaking wet and dripped on my costume, a major disaster for the year of the cereal box. What I didn’t know was that it had initially been a fortune-telling game. British author W. H. Davenport Adams described the game as in his 1902 book, “Curiosities of Superstition”: “[The apples] are thrown into a tub of water, and you endeavour to catch one in your mouth as they bob round and round in provoking fashion. When you have caught one, you peel it carefully, and pass the long strip of peel thrice, sun-wise, round your head; after which you throw it over your shoulder, and it falls to the ground in the shape of the initial letter of your true love’s name.”

My British mother told me about two other romance divination games played on Halloween when she was a girl in Liverpool. In “snap apple” the fruit was hung from the ceiling on strings. Mom complained that she got bumped in the head when she had missed biting the apple. Her unmarried aunt’s favorite was naming nutshells after prospective love interests and placing them into the fireplace to see which would burn steadily, a true love, and which would crack or pop and fly off the hearth revealing a passing fancy.

According to Web sites such as www.shopforhalloween.com, as part of the Samhain celebration, Celts would bring home an ember from the communal bonfire at the end of the night. They carried these embers in hollowed-out turnips, creating a lantern resembling the modern day jack-o’-lantern.

The more direct predecessor of jack-o’-lanterns dates back to 18th-century Ireland. Stingy Jack was a disreputable miser who avoided damnation by tricking Satan. One Hallow Eve’s night, he convinced Satan to climb up a tree for some apples and then cut crosses all around the trunk so the devil couldn’t climb down. The Devil promised to leave Jack alone forever, ­if he would only let him out of the tree. When Jack died, he was turned away from Heaven because of his life of sin. But, in keeping with their agreement, the Devil wouldn’t take Jack either. He was cursed to travel forever as a spirit. As Jack left the gates of Hell, the Devil threw him a hot ember to light the way in the dark. Jack placed the ember in a hollowed-out turnip and wandered off into the world.

Traditional jack-o’-lanterns became a very popular Halloween decoration. Folk tradition held that they would ward off Stingy Jack and other spirits on Halloween and they also served as representations of the souls of the dead. Irish families who emigrated to America brought the tradition with them, but they replaced the turnips with the more plentiful pumpkins. As it turns out, pumpkins were easier to carve than turnips. People began to cut frightening faces and other elaborate designs into their jack-o’-lanterns.

Many of us expats are now parents and grandparents. Living in Turkey does not give us much leeway to send our offspring trick or treating. We do, however, have the opportunity to celebrate Halloween by dressing up, playing childhood games together and remembering a bit of the places we have left behind. We help our children dress up in silly costumes. We teach them Halloween games. We hope they will have fond memories of Halloween in Turkey.