How long has it been since you went trick or treating? It’s probably been awhile! Do you have fun memories of trick or treating in your neighborhood when you were a child? I would like to invite you to come out to Denver’s Antique Row for our second annual “Adult Trick or Treating” event. The antique shops open up with candy and treats for adults (and kiddos!), and the restaurants will be serving adult treats in the form of beverages with a little kick.
When planning this event, I started to become curious as to the actual origins of Trick or Treating. I have come across many wonderful early (and spooky) antique photos of children and adults in costumes during Halloween, so I knew that this ritual has origins of at least 100 years. Turns out, the term “Trick or Treating” was coined around 1927 but the tradition of dressing up has been around since the Middle or Dark Ages when the Catholic Church approved of the act of “souling.” According to Smithsonian .com, “As for the trick or treating, or “guising” (from “disguising”), traditions, beginning in the Middle-Ages, children and sometimes poor adults would dress up in the aforementioned costumes and go around door to door during Hallowmas begging for food or money in exchange for songs and prayers, often said on behalf of the dead. This was called “souling, ” and the children were called “soulers.”
In 1952, Walt Disney debuted his cartoon “Trick or Treat” and the act of Trick or Treating as we know it was permanently burned into the hearts and minds of Americans.
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