How Costume Ideas Have Changed

Every year on October 31, revelers of all races, cultures, and ages celebrate Halloween, making it one of the most celebrated holidays in the world. For most people, the weeks leading up to Halloween include at least some attention to decorating, planning, and coming up with a costume idea.

Halloween originally evolved in Europe during the Middle Ages. It was originally called All Hallows Evening, and it was the celebration that took place on the evening before All Saints Day. In order to prepare for the holy day to follow - and probably with some influence from pagan harvest festivals - the nighttime celebration evolved into a night of revelry. Central to the celebration was the practice of dressing up to look like evil spirits, in order to scare actual evil spirits away.

Although All Hallows Evening was originally a religious holiday, Halloween ceased to have a religious connotation long ago, and this may account for some of its universal appeal. Most other holidays that are celebrated around the world are religious. Billions of followers may celebrate these holidays, but they do not attract people outside the religion. Halloween, with its focus on the sinister and strange, seems to be popular across the lines of faith, culture, and nationality.

Today, Halloween has become divided into two celebrations, one for adults and one for children. The separateness of the adult celebration has probably become more pronounced in recent years because many young adults are waiting longer to become parents. Without children of their own, and with time on their hands, these 20-somethings want to spend Halloween having their own kind of fun.

In every major city, Halloween sees bars, clubs, and other entertainment venues competing frantically for adult revelers' money. The adult celebration focuses on the macabre side of the celebration, often centering around horror movies and bloody decorations. More often than not, heavy drinking and various kinds of debauchery are also in order.

The celebration for children is still considerably tamer. The old custom of dressing up in costumes is still widely popular, although now it is more likely for the little tykes to dress up as a character from their favorite animated movie as it is for them to dress up as witches, goblins, or ghouls.

Trick-or-treating is another enduring custom, which is probably more popular among the kids who get to eat the candy than it is among parents who have to trudge behind them as they go door to door like a bunch of miniature, weirdly attired traveling salesmen.

The popularity of Halloween not only makes it a big party. It also makes it big business, with huge markets for decorations, costumes, and Halloween candy. Somehow, even when times are tough, people still seem to want to decorate their houses, put out a pot of treats, and pull together their latest, greatest costume idea.