5 Halloween Traditions Pennsylvania Kids Grew Up With That Deserve a Comeback

Halloween is almost here, and some of the old ways of celebrating it have faded.

Pennsylvanians who grew up in costume every October may remember a few, and others may be new to you.

Here are the Halloween traditions many Pennsylvania kids grew up with that we think deserve a comeback.

1. Orange Collection Boxes

The Halloween tradition of Trick-or-Treat for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) began in 1950 with a small group of children in Philadelphia collecting coins in milk cartons.

The program’s curriculum suggested paper milk boxes or washed-out milk cans, according to the Presbyterian Historical Society.

The orange collection box eventually took their place.

Many kids probably carried that orange box on Halloween night.

If you were one of them, you carried a piece of that history.

In 2022, the charity described the campaign’s move from orange boxes to a scannable code.

The boxes didn’t disappear, though.

As of early October 2026, UNICEF USA offers free boxes you can request on its Trick-or-Treat page.

We’d call that a comeback already in progress.

2. Mischief Night

Mischief Night is the night before Halloween.

A University of Pennsylvania study found the name common in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2017.

It didn’t always stay playful.

In 2011, Philadelphia’s public radio station said Mischief Night antics in Philadelphia had at times veered toward destruction, and the tradition seemed to be waning.

Police patrols and curfews in Philadelphia and its suburbs aimed to head off the trouble, the Inquirer wrote.

By 2017, the antics had dwindled.

If you grew up near Philadelphia, you probably know the name.

3. School Costume Parades

Halloween parades at the elementary schools in Montgomery County’s Lower Merion School District were canceled in 2022 after more than 50 years, 6abc reported.

The district named two reasons.

It said an outdoor parade made it hard to control who showed up.

It also said not everyone celebrates Halloween, and those students had sat in the library during past parades.

If you’re a parent in the district, your kids could still dress up on Halloween.

The district planned fall-themed activities in the classroom instead.

4. Painted Windows and Free Movies

Mansfield, a borough in Tioga County, once held a Halloween costume parade with cash prizes, according to a local history page.

Prize categories ran from elementary students to adults, so you didn't have to be a kid to enter.

A free movie at the Twain theater followed the parade.

Sponsors included the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Mansfield Lions and the Mansfield Hose Company.

In 1954, the borough added window painting for the first time.

Judges scored the store-window paintings on originality, simplicity and appropriateness.

The paint was tempera mixed with liquid soap for easy removal.

The window painting ended around 1960, when a new school combined the junior and senior high schools.

5. Nutcrack Night

Western Pennsylvanians called Halloween Nutcrack Night in the mid-1800s, the Heinz History Center says.

You may not have heard that name before.

Celebrants pulled up kale or cabbage stalks and heated walnuts in the hearth fire.

Those games were meant to reveal the identity of a future spouse.

Parades That Kept Going

Some Pennsylvania Halloween parades go back a century or more.

The first mention of an official Halloween Parade Committee in Emmaus was October 20, 1919, according to the borough newsletter.

On October 3, 1921, an American Legion committee told borough council about a Halloween parade.

The 100th-anniversary parade was scheduled for October 16, 2021.

The borough canceled its 2020 parade under the state's 250-person gathering limit.

In October 2021, the parade was set to return after skipping the previous year.

The Northern Lehigh parade in Slatington began in 1907, and the Times News reported in 2013 that it was possibly the oldest Halloween parade in all of Pennsylvania.

Organizers canceled the 2020 parade because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Pittsburgh's Bloomfield neighborhood canceled its Halloween parade for 2017 over cost, a Pittsburgh news report said.

A petition with more than 1,000 signatures and an emergency fundraiser brought it back that October.

Your town may have a parade like these.

You might ask your borough office about this year's date.

When Trick-or-Treating Took Over

A 1914 photo from Millvale shows costumed young adults at a Halloween party.

The Heinz History Center says that masquerade tradition dominated Pittsburgh celebrations into the 1920s.

Local newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s reported soaped cars, streetlights knocked out and fire hydrants turned on.

They also reported hatchets through doors and pianos in backyards.

If you went door to door as a kid, you joined a custom that magazines first described in the late 1930s, Smithsonian Magazine says.

In the post-war Baby Boom years, Halloween became an event for children.