Halloween: UK vs. USA

The day itself may have been, gone, and indeed been forgotten in a hazy alcoholic memory, but how many people celebrated Halloween the same way as most York students did? For students, Halloween in any British city seems to consist of copious amounts of alcohol, ridiculously revealing (often too much so) costumes, and as good an excuse as any for a house party. But is this a very culturally specific way of celebrating this ancient Pagan festival, or is it celebrated similarly in other countries? We went Stateside to find out. Ok, so we didn’t actually go to the USA, but instead we interviewed an American student to find out what’s different about Halloween in Britain.

Vanbrugh’s Savannah Green lives in Mendocino, a small rural town in Northern California, where it would seem that they celebrate Halloween in a very different way to the English.

“The main difference I noticed,” Savannah says, “is how the people in town make much more effort for decorations on their houses back in California.” She went on to describe the various adornments and scary embellishments that people make to their homes in Mendocino. Compare that to the occasional pumpkin lantern leering optimistically out of living room windows up and down Heslington Road, and it seems that’s 1-0 to the Americans.

In addition, it would also appear that there is a greater emphasis on candy rather than alcohol in the small country town - “The police are out all night,” she describes, “and every year they break up the game of Cops and Robbers that we play.”

What with America’s Over-21 drinking laws in place, the night is less about partying as it is in the big cities, and instead the night is spent Trick-or-Treating, with scary stories and games of Hide-and-Seek in the graveyard. This seems much more faithful to the origins of Halloween than any way in which we celebrate it in the UK.

The costumes, in particular, seem to be very different. In Mendocino there is a competition in the Town Hall at around 10pm every year. The locals spend more on their outfits, and instead of the witty-slutty style of costumes we tend to shoot for, theirs are much scarier and more elaborate.

It would seem that the night is very much more a family and friends celebration, in which the community all take part. Savannah describes gifts of oranges and raisins, pillowcases full of candy and running around with the other children when she was younger.

However, in the larger cities of America such as New York and Washington, the night more closely resembles the one we celebrate each year. Another student talks of a Halloween spent in Florida. “Halloween is much more widely celebrated over there. Families all get involved together, and they have lots of Halloween songs which everyone knows and joins in with”.

So it seems that tradition is still alive in the smaller villages of the USA, perhaps more so than anywhere this side of the pond, where Halloween has become an alcohol-fuelled, costume-clad night of debauchery.

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