Boo! From carving pumpkins to dressing up as witches and ghosts to munching on Halloween treats it’s time to get into the spirit of Halloween by sending no tricks, just handcrafted chocolate treats delivered through the door of someone special as a surprise Halloween gift. We know Trick or Treating won't be the same this year and may not be happening at all due to lockdown in some areas of the UK so why not treat family or friends with 3 bars of spooktacularly scrummy artisan chocolate delivered directly through their door with a fun postcard and a message from you to say Happy Halloween with our Halloween Letterbox Chocolates.
Choose Your Halloween Chocolates
Decide on which of our fangtastic scrummy flavours you would like to send this Halloween from devilishly Dark 70% Chocolate to bewitching ghostly white chocolate chocolate with peanut butter. Choose three different flavours or have all of the same flavour if it’s a favourite flavour and make someone’s Halloween special….after all it is a treat!
Send a Halloween postcard and message
Make it fun and get creative with a Halloween to go with with either our Boo, chocolate treats for you featuring our Gnaw squirrel dressed as a ghost with a trick or treat basket or our No Tricks, Just Treats postcard with Nancy the Gnawty Witch on her broomstick. A fun way to show your brother, sister, children or grandchildren that you are thinking of them.
Halloween Messages
Make it fun and get creative with a Halloween to go with with either our Boo, chocolate treats for you featuring our Gnaw squirrel dressed as a ghost with a trick or treat basket or our No Tricks, Just Treats postcard with Nancy the Gnawty Witch on her broomstick. A fun way to show your brother, sister, children or grandchildren that you are thinking of them.
Where Halloween began
The origins of Halloween can be traced back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. Until 2,000 years ago, the Celts lived across the lands we now know as Britain, Ireland and northern France. Essentially a farming and agricultural people, the Pre-Christian Celtic year was determined by the growing seasons and Samhain marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark cold winter. The festival symbolised the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It was believed by the Celts that on the night of 31st October, ghosts of their dead would revisit the mortal world and large bonfires were lit in each village in order to ward off any evil spirits that may also be at large.
From this point, the Celtic celebration of Samhain was adapted, changed and embellished by the invasive and ruling forces that followed. The Romans blended Samhain with their own Feralia celebration in late October, where they traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead.
Centuries later in the 9th century, the Christian Church attempted to supplant their own Christian take on the Samhain, and created All Souls’ Day as a Church-sanctioned holiday on November 2. The day before that was All Saints’ Day, or All-Hallows (from the middle English Alholowmesse) and so the night before All-hallows was appropriately named All-Hallows Eve. In full circle, October 31 – the same day as the ancient Celtic Samhain celebration – became known as Hallowe’en. A special time of the year when many believe that the spirit world can make contact with the physical world, a night when magic is at its most potent.
Trick or Treating origins
During some Celtic celebrations of Samhain, villagers disguised themselves in costumes made of animal skins to drive away phantom visitors; banquet tables were prepared and food was left out to placate unwelcome spirits. In later centuries, people began dressing as ghosts, demons and other malevolent creatures, performing antics in exchange for food and drink. This custom, known as mumming, dates back to the Middle Ages and is thought to be an antecedent of trick-or-treating. Poor people would visit the houses of wealthier families and receive pastries called soul cakes in exchange for a promise to pray for the souls of the homeowners’ dead relatives. Known as "souling," The practice was later taken up by children, who would go from door to door asking for gifts such as food, money and ale. In Scotland and Ireland, young people took part in a tradition called 'guising' dressing up in costume and accepting offerings from various households. Rather than pledging to pray for the dead, they would sing a song, recite a poem, tell a joke or perform another sort of “trick” before collecting their treat, which typically consisted of fruit, nuts or coins.
Halloween Traditions
Pumpkin Carving
Carving pumpkins into Jack O’Lanterns is a tradition that stems from an old Irish myth. The story goes.. a character called Stingy Jack managed to trick the devil multiple times, making him promise not to claim his soul when he died.Therefore, when Stingy Jack did lose his life, the Devil couldn’t take his soul to hell, but God wasn’t going to allow someone like Jack into heaven either. The Devil gave Jack a burning coal from hell and he began to roam the dark nights with just the coal to light his way. He put the burning ember into a hollowed-out turnip, and the Irish people began to refer to this phantom-like figure as Jack of the Lantern, which was shortened to Jack O’Lantern.
From Ireland, the tale spread to Scotland and England, and people carved out turnips, beetroots and potatoes and put them in windows or near doors to scare away Jack and other evil spirits.
Turnips and beetroots don’t adorn the steps of our homes on Halloween nowadays. It was when European immigrants took the tradition to America that they started carving pumpkins instead, as they were native to the region and more readily available. We’ve taken to the pumpkin tradition here in the UK too as they’re much easier to hollow out, carve and get creative with.
Halloween dressing up and costumes
Another complex history behind this one – the Celts believed that ghosts, fairies and spirits came visiting on October 31, and had to be appeased with food and drink. If people dressed up as the spirits and received offerings on their behalf, they believed that this would protect them from the souls of the dead.
Centuries later in the 15th century, Christians used to share soul-cakes (a cakey biscuit with a cross design) from October 31 to November 2. People would visit houses and take soul-cakes in return for praying for the souls of the household’s dead relatives.
The wearing of costumes, or “guising” developed around the same time. Groups would dress up and travel house to house reciting poetry, acting out small plays or singing songs in return for money, apples or soul-cakes. Some groups threatened mischief if they were not paid.
The first written use of trick or treat as we know it was in 1927 in America (many of the Halloween traditions had moved over there with British immigrants), where it described a situation in which “youthful tormentors were at [the] back door and front, demanding edible plunder by the world “trick or treat”.
Halloween Messages
From ancient times, folks believed that this was the night when haunted and spooky things happened with great frequency. The tradition lives on today. For many kids, it’s a popular holiday so have fun with your personalised message and here are a few expressions and message you could use for your fun postcard for the spookiest of days on 31st October.
• Time for shivers, scares, and thrills, for pumpkin grins in windowsills, for black cats in the full moon’s glow, and a happy Halloween hello!
• A Merry Halloween. Wishing you a night filled with good old-fashioned fun.
• Hope your night is so happy, it makes you glow from the inside out.
• Happy Howl-o-ween!
• I am dying to have a great Halloween with you. Let’s get some candy!
• The skeleton laughed at this message. It tickled his funny bone.
• Have a killer Halloween!
• Gho-stylin’ this Halloween. Wear some spooky BOOts.
• I am hoping you have a great Halloween. Stay safe.
• Halloween is a great time to dress up and have a little fun. Happy Halloween.
• Remember the gh’oul times!
• Ghostly Greetings
• Trick or Treat. Smell my feet. Give me something good to eat.
• You are BOOtiful.
• Have a spooktakular good time!
• Best witches
• I love you, just BOOcause
Halloween Delivery
Send your Gnaw Halloween Letterbox Chocolates through the letterbox anywhere in the UK using 48 hour courier service or tracked service. So where ever you are in the UK you can have scrummy chocolate treats delivered to your door.
