With a documented history spanning roughly two millennia and traditions spanning across the world, Halloween is one of the most widely celebrated holidays in the United States.  It’s also an incredibly lucrative holiday, with this year’s spending total expected to reach $8.8 billion in the US alone.  Halloween, according to folklorist Jack Santino, is a holiday that is intended to stretch borders – those of exploration, identity, marginality and, in some cases, rules themselves.  The celebrations, which involve costumes, jack o’ lanterns, candy, horror movies and remembrance of the dead, demonstrate a great deal of syncretism, blending Celtic, Hispanic and American traditions into one magnificent event. A mere sample of the Halloween-related items in the collection of IU East librarian … Continued