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| My sister and I were dressed as Gypsies. They certainly were warm outfits. |
Many folks I know from other areas of
New York City never heard of this, but where I was born in Queens, New York, we
didn’t go out Trick-or-Treating on Halloween, we ragamuffins went ‘begging’ on
Thanksgiving. In the morning we were dressed up as beggars or Gypsies, in
whatever old clothes were usable, and we went from door to door asking
“Anything for Thanksgiving?” I was only in the second grade when my family
moved from the city out to the country wilds of Long Island’s Nassau County,
but my city memories tell me that we came home with apples and oranges, nuts
and cookies, and perhaps a cup cake to add to the bounty of the day.
Some recall that the items collected
were given, in turn, to the various churches to then be distributed to the
poor. I don’t recall this. I do recall a lot of walnuts at the bottom of my
bag.
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| St. Martin's Day in the Netherlands |
The custom
may have a connection to November 11th, Martinmas, the feast day of
St. Martin of Tours, patron saint of beggars and the poor, or St. Catherine’s
Day, November 25th, both of which dates are used by many European
cultures to signify the end of autumn and the coming of winter. On either or both days, depending on the
country and culture, children would dress up - or down! - and go around the
town, especially with lantern on St. Martin’s Day, singing appropriate songs and,
in many places, receive donations of food or money to be brought to the church,
or get sweets for themselves. Many
countries celebrated with large, festive meals.
It’s a certainty that the ancestors of
these children brought these customs with them when the emigrated here,
especially to the east coast, and they were gradually merged with the
Thanksgiving traditions already in place.
Depending on the ethnic makeup of a neighborhood, some or all of the
traditions carried over. I’m sure that
the ‘large, festive meals’ were easily transferred to the last Thursday of
November.
Halloween has become a big, commercial
festival, costumes and treats galore, so I’m not too sure that children still
go begging on Thanksgiving Day. They’ve probably still got a lot of loot left
over from Halloween, and the lure of the Macy’s parade on the TV is just too
enticing to miss. We adults fondly recall the simpler times of our younger
years. I suppose that today’s children
will recall these days as being the simpler times - and I can’t begin to
imagine the times in which they’ll be living in the future, when what today’s
adults call ‘excessive’ will to our grandchildren be ‘simple‘. It boggles the
mind!
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| Yes, this was me around age six. I was a curmudgeon even then. I was often a bit snerty about having my picture taken. Don't you love the look? My older granddaughters call this "the lemon look". |
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