Halloween-Informative Speech : The History Of Halloween

La dia de los Muertos dates back to as early as the maya and aztec days, nearly 3,000 years ago. “The Aztecs didn’t fear death. They believed the way a person died determines their type of afterlife.” (Sarah Massey) Families place alters in their homes with favorite foods of the deceased people, sugar skulls with their name on it, special possessions of the loved ones, and Pan de Muerto (bread of the dead). On the altar are four special elements, water, wind, fire, and earth. Candles represent fire, food represents the earth. Halloween dates back to the celt days, about 2,000 years ago. They lived in what now is known as Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They gathered on October 31st to celebrate the end of the harvest season. The celts believed that spirits roamed the earth on this night. Celts out food out for the spirits, this was the first form of trick or treating. Some dressed up as the dead to scare away the spirits. They carved turnips and put candles in them to make lanterns. This tradition continued when the immigrants came to America, but pumpkins were easier to find so they carved pumpkins. They swapped scary stories and had a big feast. Roman Catholics began to celebrate All Hallows’ day on November 1st, October 31st became All Hallows’ Eve, later shortened to

Halloween is an appreciation of the afterlife and the survival after death. Literal meaning is the night before All Hallows' Day (aka All Saints' Day). Day of the Dead is the remembrance and celebration of friends and family who are dead.

Introduction: Patrons of the season of Halloween spend over $2.5 billion dollars every year on candy, costumes, and decorations. Every year millions of kids get dressed up, knock on doors, and beg for candy. Have you ever wondered where this strange tradition originated? The three most important points of Halloween can be summed up by looking at its origins, how it came to include jack-o-lanterns and bobbing for apples, and how it is celebrated today with trick-or-treating and haunted houses.

There has never been a time in modern civilization that we haven’t had a Halloween celebration. For the past 2,000 years, various cultures around the world have participated in observing the holiday. Different cultures introduce their own traditions and carry out preexisting traditions. The cycle has been continuous for a couple thousand years, but where did it all come from?

Celebrated on October 31st, the festival of Halloween (also known as Samhain) includes dressing in costume, trick or treating, and decorating. Tracing back in history Halloween is considered to be one of America’s oldest holidays, and is still celebrated today. Halloween is believed to come from Celtic rituals. Celtics believed the cosmological myth of Saman (Lord of the Dead). Saman would call on the souls of the people that passed away that year to take them to the afterlife or underworld; the Celtic underworld identifies with the Christian Hell. In order for the spirits to believe they were on their own, the living would wear costumes and mask their identities, along with fairies, witches and demons. This functions as a cosmological myth because it provides a creation story and framework in which this universe occupies and includes many other realms of existence. Another tradition that followed was to give food to the Saman, to persuade him to be more tolerant while he judged the dead ancestors of the living, which he would chose to take to the underworld. In this essay I will further investigate what the origins of Halloween consist of and how it offers reasoning for trick-or-treating. Also I will examine how trick-or-treating, which is still continued today, is connected to ancient Celtic festivals.

C. Thesis Statement: Going from what the meaning of Halloween is in America today and looking back at it’s roots, it has evolved dramatically. And just recently we have been seeing a comeback from one of those roots, but do we know it’s real cultural significance?

Halloween was an ancient cultural festival taken by people who thought it was interesting. With the holiday's history steeped in cultural borrowing it’s a shame that many Halloween costumes suffer from cultural theft.

LISTENER RELEVANCE: When we think of Halloween, we think of haunted houses, scary stories, and costumes of all sorts, candy, witches, black cats and more. But some of us have probably wondered where the history lies behind it all.

The catholic, mexican holiday, Day of the Dead and the very westernized holiday Halloween may seem very alike with their traditions and themes, but in retrospect, they are very different and have very different origins. Halloween and Day of the Dead happen at the same time, end of October and beginning of November. The background of these two holidays are very spiritual and they have an interesting story of how the Halloween and day of the dead was created. In this essay, I will be talking about the how Halloween and Day of the Dead are celebrated , the origins of Day of the Dead and Halloween, and decorations and celebrations of Day of the Dead and Halloween. Both Day of the Dead and Halloween deal with spooky traditions but they are very different than the stereotypical thought that they are just weird, scary holidays but after reading some background to these two holidays, many people realize there is a lot more to Halloween and Day of the Dead.

If not placated, they dread that the spirits of dead would ruin their home and destroy their property. As the centuries wore on, people began dressing like these fearful creatures, performing antics in exchange for candy. The practice of “ trick or treat” present day is from which the practice of Celtic tradition evolves. To this day, witches, ghosts, batman, black cat and skeleton figures of are among the favorite disguises. Halloween symbols, traditions, and practices certainly have had great influences upon Western culture throughout history.

Halloween as we know it now has to do with children, and even sometimes adults, that go around house to house in all sorts of costumes, ranging from pretty princesses to the devil, asking for candy by saying “Trick or Treat”. Throughout time, Halloween has changed from a religious holiday to a secular holiday that doesn’t have to do with religion at all, ultimately leading up to the holiday that we know Halloween to be today. The very beginning of Halloween is nothing similar to the Halloween that we know in America today, dating all the way back to the Celts more than 2000 years ago in Ireland. To the Celtics, the believed that November 1st was when the summer ended and the winter began. This was the time that the Celtics believed that

Halloween is an annual holiday celebrated on the 31st of October across the globe. The holiday originated ancient Celtic. Celts lived 2000 years ago in the areas which are now Ireland, Northern France, and the United Kingdom. They had a similar celebration called Samhain. Samhain was celebrated on the 1st of November rather than the 31st of October. Throughout the centuries Halloween traditions have changed drastically. To see what a difference Halloween is now to back in time we must examine what traditions and celebrations were done, secondly how we celebrate the famously known holiday and finally what people have against the celebrations and traditions to this day.

In the contemporary period, Halloween’s popularity has increased. Personal expenditures on Halloween have drastically increased since the 2000s, to create a multi-billion dollar industry, which has expanded the cultural awareness and practice of Halloween (Khapaeva 57). However, this expansion has led to the commodification of Halloween, by equating it with consumer culture. This has significant implications for the cultural conception of death as it equate previously potent symbols with cheap goods. But this might have been by design, as Grider argues that the mass commercialization of Halloween is another way in which collectively western culture can control the “potentially dangerous incursion of the supernatural world in our everyday lives” (10). Through the ownership of material goods associated with Halloween, the narrative and context of the concepts are further

Halloween: the holiday where as kids we couldn’t wait to go door to door to achieve the golden goal of a full bag of candy. Halloween soon turns into a question mark for teens; in an instant, there is a change of when it is ‘appropriate’ to go trick-or-treating and when you should just move on. Are you the one who thinks Trick-or-treating is lame or the one who still walks around your neighborhood every year -- no matter how many dirty looks you may get. What teenagers decide to do on Halloween varies: going to a party, passing out candy, staying home are a few popular options. Throughout my highschool experience I have been able to witness and experience all different types of halloteens, each with their own traits.

Halloween has gone through many changes since it first began. Once, Halloween was a grave time and considered a foreboding sign of the coming of winter. However, over the centuries Halloween has been modernized into a fun and festive time of year for many people, especially for Americans. People of all ages are all able to contribute to Halloween. Millions of Americans spend massive amounts of money every year on Halloween decorations, costumes, and candy.