I really really really feel the need to add and/or clarify something about this post. It’s just that every time, this time of the year, my southerner heart cries a little, because Halloween is NOT an adopted holiday.
With other names it always existed and was celebrated in Italy.
Ancient Romans, Etruscans, and other people leaving here all had their traditions to celebrate the deaths. Between VIII and X century the Church, unable to eradicate pagan traditions, moved the day of the Saints from May to November and also added the day of the Deads to justify those unholy celebrations.
Since then those traditions have been passed down through the centuries and have remained very much alive (especially, but not only) in southern Italy. Not so many years ago our grandparents made lanterns with turnips or yellow pumpkins, they left food for the dead and were given small treats (cakes, nuts, chestnuts, etc.) long before American "colonization" pushed people to rename it all Halloween.
Here in the South to dress like a ghost is nothing new, really. Neither is the concept of dead souls trepassing into the world of the living. The same goes for asking for a treat or carving pumpkins and we have many typical sweets which have something to do with death :D