Halloween Date: October 31
Halloween Day is celebrated as a festival worldwide.
A festival that is closely related to All Saints day or sometimes even considered the same in some parts of the world is Halloween. The festival itself evokes a great sense of joy among the younger generation of people. The festival comes about as a practice followed among the Christian population and had its genesis in Samhain, a Celtic festival.
Halloween History
The celebration of the festival is carried out in order to pacify the dead. It is believed that on this day the portal that separates the dead and the living is breached and that tragedy follows in the form of illness and crop failures. It is because of this reason that bonfires are carried out as a ritual practice on the day of Halloween so that bones of dead carcasses can be cast into the flames as a sacrifice for the dead.
Halloween mainly is associated with Europe as far as its origins are considered as some of the foremost civilizations like the Celtics often believed in supernatural powers and celebrated festivals and rituals to honor the dead. The festival spread to The United States where it now enjoys cult status thanks mainly due to Hollywood.
Halloween celebrations mainly involve scary proceedings like people wearing masks, bonfires, scary storytelling and events of such an order. This became popular as Hollywood started cashing on the people’s belief in Halloween and started making movies to cater to the scare thirsty followers thereby enabling more people to take part in the celebration of the festival.
Halloween was primarily named as All Hallows’ Eve. But this soon became the popular festival we know now. The celebrations of the festival have been going on for centuries now and the type of celebrations differ upon the place. In the more developed world that is today, kids often practice trick or treat, an event where kids visit people’s houses dressed up as scary monsters and ask for chocolates and candy.
Halloween Traditions and Activities
The event brings much cheer to the kids in town as they get to dress up as some of their favorite creatures. Soon, commercialization made its mark in the celebration of the festival and several companies started cashing in on the costume frenzy. Costumes that were irrelevant to Halloween were manufactured and sold by the thousands. Older generation of celebrations involved skeletons being hung outside houses to pacify the dead. Celebration of Halloween now is almost a universal event, with kids running in costumes and scary movies being watched. The festival has acquired a large fan following and studies show that the average American spends more on Halloween each year than he/she did the previous year.
Interesting facts about Halloween
The pumpkin shaved in the form of a head and with a light inside is done to replicate a person’s head as it is the most powerful part of the human body and is hung outside instead of skeletons used by the ancient Celtics. The festival is believed to have been brought to the Americas by the Irish in 1846 during the Great Famine.
