Submitted by PikesPique t3_y1e2ft in todayilearned
In Sweden kids dress up like witches and go door-to-door being given candy around Easter.
Makes as much sense as celebrating Easter with an anthropomorphic bunny that brings baskets of chocolate.
Woah hold the phone, YOU’RE TELLING ME I HAD MY OWN HOLIDAY????
u/SomeonesRagamuffin did you know about this??
The date for Easter moves every year because it is based on the first full moon after the spring equinox.
The rabbit used to be associated with the moon because back then they saw a “rabbit in the moon” instead of a “man in the moon”.
Our current celebrations are the newest version of a really old telephone game :)
The rabbit is because it's a traditional symbol of spring
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Why are you linking an American/Asian traditional symbol as if it has any application to European culture?
Easter is in the spring, we celebrate the rabbit on the moon during the fall festival. That has nothing to do with European spring festivals.
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So, what are trying to prove? This is stuff they teach in Canadian elementary school, never once have I heard of the rabbit on the moon during Easter.
Are you trying to whitewash Asian folklore? The link you provided only talks about the history of Easter, no rabbit on the moon.
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I knew that it looked like a rabbit and my friends called me crazy!
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We do a ragamuffin parade every year here in Hoboken, NJ!
Grew up in NYC in the early 90s and early on in elementary school we definitely had a ragamuffin parade in school.
Co-signing on this
I prefer this Halloween origin story.
I seem to remember they celebrated this in the novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
Just realized that I’ve never read that book. I should read it.
You should, it is a classic.
It’s one of my all time favorite books and of the few stories I’ve ever read where the movie adaptation really gets the “feeling” of the characters - my recommendation would be to read the book first but then watch the movie if you can.
I’ve always considered it an “autumn” book for some reason (and usually reread it in September) so if you’re interested now is a great time to check it out!
My absolute favorite as a Brooklynite growing up with an immigrant family
Maybe it's because I was guilted into reading it when I was like 13 but I thought it was tedious
I grew up attending the Ragamuffin Parade in Brooklyn! I almost forgot about it until this moment!
Ha same! In Bay Ridge??
Yup!
Me too! PS 185! I didn't really think about how this wasn't a widespread thing.
So crazy right?! As a kid I was like oh Rafamuffin Parade on 3rd Ave, like all the other parades. Remember the Norwegian Day parade??
Oh man that was huge in my family! We are Norwegian and my grandfather used to own a Scandinavian specialty store on 5th avenue. I guess they still do the parade but it's pretty small now. I moved away in 2008 and visit every other year or so. Less and less family still in NYC.
Yea it's always weird to visit Bay Ridge. It is a little weird world of its own.
My brother lived there for years after I moved and he would text me once in a while "I'm going to the city what train do I take to get to X". Saturday Night Fever was so accurate.
Haha!! Love it
Yo this is a really neat coincidence of a comment thread! I only went to one Ragamuffin real young but it's nice to see the flyers and community get ready for it every year.
I bet my mom still has pictures of me in the parade. I think I was a pirate one year? We used to stage in the parking lot of whatever bank that is on 3rd and 92nd across from food town. Although it was a different supermarket at the time I think. Maybe Key Food?
ooo thats mighty interesting to hear. I've always known it as Key Food!
The Walgreens on 94th used to be a supermarket, wasn’t that a key food? I’m almost certain food town used to be something else, I need to research that. I still can’t believe Circles is gone. UPDATE I spoke to my mom, she says it's always been a Food Town but the Staples on 5th/94th used to be a Grand Union. I sort of remember that but I was young.
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I totally grew up with this in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and forgot about it until now! I never really knew what it was about I guess or how it started
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We have all been waiting at 59th st for the R train for the last 2 hours.
Haha love it! Left a long time ago but mom is still there. Did you go to Fort Hamilton by chance?
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What year did you graduate?
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I was 01! Just missed you
eyyyyy Bay Ridge babyyyy
I can only imagine how annoying that would be having to get up from the dinner table to answer the door every few minutes.
This is what Halloween is like.
But without the Thanksgiving dinner.
We have a kids parade for Halloween here that they call a Rag-Shag, wonder if that has something to do with the name.
This was a thing in the early 80’s still.
Ragamuffin is still done its just a little different. Now its mostly done by adults on Thanksgiving night into Friday. Instead of door to door you find one door of a store. Then like a homeless person you camp out all night, fight with other homeless, and then get some commercial product you can't pay for.
I see what you did there.
So some of these boomer bastards were double dipping Ragamuffin day and Halloween too. These guys got everything.
We prefer " tatterdemalion". After all, it doesn't take much to be a ragamuffin. All kinds of people do it every day!
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Taken from Wiki:
>These children were originally dressed in the style of the homeless of New York, with
rags and oversized and exaggerated imitations of beggars.
I think this was mentioned in Betty Smith's book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She never cited the day, just had the kids doing it things described.
If it was on Thanksgiving.... people just called it thanksgiving. No one called it raggamuffin day. Go away now
PikesPique OP t1_irws6ho wrote
The article says the door-to-door begging was replaced with Ragamuffin parades in the 1930s, which eventually became Thanksgiving Day parades, although some places in the New York metro still have them.