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Boo! Did that scare you? Halloween is this Friday. Did that scare you? Halloween is here, but for many it might feel like the holiday snuck up on you. It’s not just midterms or the energy drinks catching up to you anymore; Halloween is changing.
Did you used to look forward to a Halloween night filled with chilly walks, raging stomach aches and watching scary movies that you pretended didn’t affect you but haunted you for weeks to come? Do you look forward to Halloween now? It may feel like Halloween has lost its mysticism. That’s why I looked into the history of Halloween, to assess how exactly Halloween has changed.
Samhain, an ancient Celtic ritual, is acknowledged as the basis for Halloween. The Celts, who hail from western Europe, would celebrate the changing of the seasons by preparing sweets and wearing costumes to ward off evil spirits. Settlers from Europe brought the holiday to America and originally carved out turnips instead of pumpkins.
The name Halloween stems from the efforts of Christian officials to get people to stop practicing non-Christian festivals like Samhain by creating All Hallows’ Day, which was celebrated on Nov. 1, making Oct. 31 All Hallows’ Eve. Later, people would shorten All Hallows’ Eve to Halloween.
Grasping onto the opportunity that Halloween provided, candy companies and Hollywood would latch onto the holiday. Both would try to strike a fine balance between a fun celebration for children and a night full of terror. This corporatization served as a basis for all children who celebrated Halloween in the 2010s. The holiday wasn’t without its difficulties during the 2010s, as parents feared tainted candy and schools banned all costumes from classrooms. However, Halloween will undergo its most recent transformation and biggest difficulties in 2020.
During the pandemic, many people hoped that following COVID-19 guidelines would be sufficient; they included surgical masks in their costumes and stayed six feet apart. Some counties planned to pause trick-or-treating during the pandemic. Boulder County got creative and offered virtual pumpkin carving contests, pre-recorded videos filmed in Columbia Cemetery and held drive-in movies at the Flatirons Golf Course. Undoubtedly, the biggest tradition undertaken at this time, which appears to be sticking around, is trunk-or-treating.
Trunk-or-treating offers an alternative to traditional trick-or-treating. Vehicles gather in a parking lot with their trunks decorated and give candy to children who walk from trunk to trunk. While trunk-or-treating has existed long before 2020, the explosion in its popularity continues today. As of 2025, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office and Coroner’s Office are hosting their own trunk-or-treat. Empower Field will serve as the location for the Far East Center and the Denver Police Department’s 2025 trunk-or-treat celebration.
This major shift may be to blame for the feeling that Halloween has snuck up on us like a bad jump scare. Since houses are no longer the stomping grounds for trick-or-treaters, many have opted not to decorate their homes for Halloween. Without this signature marker, it may feel like the 31st is far away.
If this decrease in Halloween decorations is harming your inner child, as it is for me, why not decorate your space? Those Halloween arts and crafts that occupied your days during elementary school can come back again. Make a macaroni pumpkin on the paper you get from your in-class handouts, throw a sheet on your head and scare your roommate, or carve a turnip to be historically accurate. Whatever you do, be sure to be safe this Halloween and give yourself a stomachache from candy for old times’ sake.
Contact CU Independent Writer Atticus Kennedy at atticus.kennedy@colorado.edu
