Halloween:
Halloween is a popular American holiday. Celebrated on October 31st every year, children dress up in costumes, go after nightfall house to house, knock on doors and say trick or treat! They then receive treats such as candies from people. Costumes can be scary: you can see many witches, monsters, ghosts and vampires but on the other hand you might also see lots of children dressed up as fairies or princesses. It is also a time that people have Halloween parties where you play fun games like bobbing for apples, go through a haunted house, or even have a costume party. To add to that, you can also see lots of jack o'lanterns on Halloween.
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Halloween is an old practice?
The answer is not so easy, because Halloween is an old practice and different ages, cultures and religious settings have added elements to it. The name ‘Halloween’ is linked to the Christian festival of ‘All Hallows’ or ‘All saints’, which is celebrated on the 1st of November. This is traditionally a day on which the church remembers with joy the lives of the saints and martyrs who have gone to heaven before us.
Ancient origins of Halloween:
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1st.
This day marked the end of summer, the harvest and the beginning of the
dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
Why do we celebrate Halloween?
Halloween has been around for more than a thousand years. Originally a religious observance, it became increasingly secular over the centuries until its religious trappings all but disappeared. Today Halloween is considered a holiday for dress-up and fun, especially for children.
Halloween’s origins can be traced back to the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain, which was held on November 1 in contemporary calendars. It was believed that on that day, the souls of the dead returned to their homes, so people dressed in costumes and lit bonfires to ward off spirits. In this way, popular Halloween tropes such as witches, ghosts, and goblins became associated with the holiday.
In the 7th century CE, Pope Boniface IV created All Saints Day, originally celebrated on May 13. A century later, Pope Gregory III moved the holiday to November 1, likely as a Christian substitute for the pagan festival of Samhain. The day before the saintly celebration became known as All Hallows Eve, or Halloween.
Though the holiday began in Celtic regions of Ireland, the United Kingdom, and France, it quickly spread to other parts of the world. The first American colonists in New England were forbidden to celebrate it for religious reasons, though it enjoyed some popularity in the Southern colonies. By the 1800s, fall festivals marking the seasonal harvest incorporated Halloween elements, and Irish immigrants escaping the devastating Potato Famine brought with them many Halloween traditions that remain today.
The custom of trick-or-treating, in which children dress up in
costume and solicit treats from neighbors, became popular in the United States in the early 20th century as Irish and Scottish communities revived the Old World custom of “guising,” in which a person would dress in costume and tell a joke, recite a poem, or perform some other trick in exchange for a piece of fruit or other treat. By 1950, trick-or-treating for candy had become one of Halloween’s most popular activities.
Today, Halloween is one of the biggest holidays for candy sales in the United States, exceeding $2.5 billion annually. The change in the attitude towards Halloween surely has its benefits!
Writer: Sufyaan Bocus
Editors: Deveshi Dowlol,Oorshia Mulung