• Mummers Festival

    Every December in St. John's, Newfoundland, people parade the streets wearing creepy masks, fake horse heads and their underwear on the outside.
    The spectacle is all part of the Mummers Festival, which celebrates a once-banned, centuries-old tradition in the province called mummering.

    Mummering originated in England and Ireland, and the earliest record of it in Newfoundland dates to 1819, according to the Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage project. During Christmas season, people would disguise their identities using a mishmash of household items and travel door to door to neighbors' homes. Neighbors would invite them in for impromptu parties with food and drinks, all while attempting to identify the masked visitors. Once an identity was determined, the mask came off.

    *CNN article