• Home
  • Our Shop
  • About Us
    • About MKB
    • Our Shop
    • MKB Board
    • Editorial Board and MKB Administrators
    • Our Contributors
    • For Bloggers: Join MKB
    • Books and Products from Our Members
    • Cultural Resources
    • Contact Us
  • Product Promotion Services
  • Blog Hops & Series
    • Holidays Around the World
      • Martin Luther King Day
      • Chinese New Year
      • Purim
      • Passover
      • Easter Around the World
      • Ramadan
      • Hajj (Eid al Adha)
      • Rosh Hashanah
      • Day of the Dead
      • Diwali
      • Hanukkah
      • Christmas in Different Lands
    • Heritage Months
      • Black History Month
      • Women’s History Month
      • Asian-Pacific Islander Heritage Month
      • Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month
      • Hispanic Heritage Month
      • Native American Heritage Month
    • Blogging Carnivals
    • Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop
    • Global Learning for Kids
  • Resources for Raising Global Citizens
  • Privacy Policy

Multicultural Kid Blogs

For families and educators raising world citizens, through arts, activities, crafts, food, language, and love.

Celebrating Halloween as a Multicultural Family

October 24, 2016 by Alexandra Madhavan

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Celebrating Halloween as a Multicultural Family | Multicultural Kid Blogs

Growing up in Canada, Halloween has always been a fun-filled special holiday for me. As soon as school begins in September, all the kids start to get excited about Halloween and brainstorm their costumes. It is a very kid-centric holiday that the whole family can enjoy. I also love it because it is a very creative holiday – expressing yourself by dressing up as something else, decorating your house, designing your costume – the possibilities are endless! I grew up celebrating Halloween from birth until well into college. Now, as a parent, it’s even more special because I get to celebrate it with my daughter. It is also a very special holiday for grandparents – growing up I spent every Halloween at my grandparents’ house – and we are doing the same with our daughter.

Celebrating Halloween as a Multicultural Family | Multicultural Kid Blogs

Halloween is always celebrated on the night of October 31st. It is loosely based on an ancient Celtic holiday called Samhain, which marks the start of the dark half of the year and the day where the souls of the dead are said to walk the Earth. In ancient times, people wore costumes to hide their identities and trick evil spirits. These traditions were brought over to Canada by the first British, Irish and Scottish immigrants.

My husband and his family are from Southern India and they had never celebrated Halloween before I joined their family. After my husband & I moved back to my native Canada, I made it my mission to teach him how to celebrate it with us. Little did I know that it would end up being one of his favorite holidays! Indians typically celebrate their festivals with such vigor and I was so happy to see that translate into his enthusiasm about Halloween.

Celebrating Halloween as a Multicultural Family | Multicultural Kid Blogs

This year will be extra special for us since it is the first year since my Indian in-law’s moved in with us and became official Canadian Permanent Residents – which means we can all celebrate it as a family.

Celebrating Halloween as a Multicultural Family

On the day of Halloween, we make sure all our decorations are ready before dusk (and that includes extra candy!). If it is a weekday, we go to work normally and the children go to school. At around 5 P.M., we feed the children an early dinner. Then, we get dressed up in our costumes (for adults, costumes are optional) and take a medium-sized bucket for the children to collect their candy. No matter if it is rainy, cloudy, or clear weather – we head out! The children go up to the houses and knock on the door, yelling “trick or treat!”. The house owners open the door, admire their costumes and give them a piece of candy, which they put in their bucket. 

When we head out trick-or-treating, we make sure to only go to the houses that are decorated with pumpkins or other scary decorations. Halloween is typically only celebrated at residential houses and not in apartment buildings. We tend to go out in our neighborhood, stopping by friends’ houses, relatives’ houses, and then we finish at grandparents’ houses – where the children proudly show off their candy. We walk and explore until the children’s buckets are full and they can no longer carry it – then we know it’s time to go home! We save the bucket of candy as special treats for the children to enjoy year ’round – and we always take a few candies for ourselves after the kids go to bed!

Celebrating Halloween as a Multicultural Family | Multicultural Kid Blogs

But for us, Halloween is not celebrated on a single night. We spend nearly the whole month of October preparing for it! Some of our favorite annual traditions include:

  • a trip to the pumpkin patch
  • carving the pumpkins
  • doing Halloween-themed crafts
  • reading children’s books about Halloween
  • decorating our house / parents’ house
  • watching scary movies (especially on Halloween night after the kids go to bed!)
  • buying/making our costumes
  • attending celebratory Halloween events in our city (like the Stanley Park Miniature Ghost Train ride

Celebrating Halloween as a Multicultural Family | Multicultural Kid Blogs

How do you celebrate Halloween?

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profile

Alexandra Madhavan

Blogger at Madh Mama
What happens when a Canadian girl becomes a Tamil Iyengar wife? I write a blog (Madh Mama) about being married into a big fat South Indian family, and raising our daughter between two cultures (Canada/India). We currently live in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profileMy Pinterest profile

Latest posts by Alexandra Madhavan (see all)

  • Rajma Masala: a North Indian Recipe - June 11, 2018
  • How Telling Women’s Stories Shapes Generations and Builds Resilience - March 19, 2018
  • Celebrating Halloween as a Multicultural Family - October 24, 2016

Filed Under: Canada, Family Activities, Halloween Tagged With: creative kids culture, culture, family activities, halloween, kids' activities, multicultural, multicultural activities, multicultural Halloween, multicultural kids, multiculturalism

Subscribe to our mailing list

* indicates required

Trackbacks

  1. Food for Thought - By Catarina says:
    October 28, 2016 at 7:43 am

    […] darkness, trigger memories of the dead and ignite the celebration of the force of life within us. Here you can read an account of a multicultural Halloween, here a post on how to set up a family altar […]

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on Google+Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on PinterestFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on Instagram

Anti-Bullying Resource FREE Download

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Grab Our Button!

grab button for Multicultural Kid Blogs
<div class="multicultural-kid-blogs-button" style="width: 200px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://multiculturalkidblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/button-take-3.jpg" alt="Multicultural Kid Blogs" width="200" height="200" /> </a> </div>
Multicultural Children's Book Day Co-Host

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT