Halloween: A Recent Obsession

So deeply ingrained is our culture's infatuation with Halloween, you'd think that Americans had been observing it since colonial times. That's why I was surprised to learn this morning that the first recorded observance of Halloween in the U.S. didn't occur until 1921 (in Anoka, Minnesota)(where we almost bought a house once but chose not to because the city billed itself as the Halloween capital of the world. True story.).

Today, the "holiday" is second only to Christmas in the amount of money Americans spend observing it.