Why Should We Celebrate Halloween?

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.

First is the history of Halloween all according to a 2017 article from LiveScience by Benjamin Radford. Around 2,000 years ago in the United Kingdom Ireland, and the northern part of France the people called the Celts started this holiday. They called it Samhain back then instead of Halloween. November 1st marked their new year which resulted in them celebrating on October 31st. The New Year brought wintertime which to them meant death. On the night before winter which was October 31st, they believe that the spirits of the Dead came back. They wore costumes, put on bonfires, burned crops and sacrificed animals. When the Romans

Halloween. As a kid you see it as a chance to play dress up and a game of who got the most candy. As a teen, you see it as a game of who can host the best party, find the scariest people, or find the scariest places. Lucky for me, I won the unspoken teen game, all on Halloween night.

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.

Halloween is the point at which you cut Jack o' Lanterns out of pumpkins, design the house with a ghoulish topic, parties, and go trap or treating way to entryway wearing ensembles. Halloween is praised by both kids and grown-ups. Kids spruce up in

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

[3]During, Samhain (sow-in), the tribal people would pay tribute to their conquerors and then the ancient mounds might reveal the magnificent palaces of the gods of the underworld. differences as well. Basically, both the festival of Samhain (sow-in) and our present day Halloween involved costumes and they were both celebrated in the fall. The differences, however, outnumber the similarities. Costumes had change from a disguise that was terrifying to the eye and fearful to costumes made in a factory somewhere that is sometimes at an outrageous price. Girls costumes have changed the most, they used to cover your whole body to something skimpy and ridiculous. For example, a sexy Donald Trump costume….it even sounds ridiculous. In Conclusion, Halloween has changed over the years but some traditions have remained the same but not for the same

The Celtic people would have huge bonfire celebrations in which they dressed up in costumes and wore masks to mimic and appease the spirits.”

This Halloween will not be as exciting as I hoped. Most people say I am bad luck and no one wants to touch me or even look at me. Most black cats are bad luck when you touch them,but I am a nice black cat. I just want someone to pick me up and play with me,but when someone looks at me they run away screaming. I do not understand why people could be so cruel to things like me. I hate Halloween,kids are always trick-or-treating and they are all dressed up as monsters and all kinds of things. Who would want to dress up as something they are not?

Halloween and the Day of the Dead are celebrated differently in the following ways. One way these holidays are different is the date on which they are celebrated. Halloween is celebrated on the 31st of October while the Day of the Dead is celebrated on the 1st and 2nd of November. They are also different because Halloween is celebrated by children dressing up in costumes and going door to door saying “trick or treat” in hopes that they get candy. This is different from the Day of the Dead where the event is celebrated by Mexicans to honor their dead ancestors by going to their graves, offering them food and drinks, and having a party. Another difference in how they are celebrated is that during Halloween, children have the evening on October 31 to “trick or treat” around their neighborhood for candy. This is different from the Day of the Dead, where people spend the days of November 1st and 2nd cleaning and decorating their loved ones’ graves and preparing all kinds of foods and drinks to have a party/celebration in the evening with their loved ones at el panteón, or in other words the cemetery. The similarity between the holidays is that they are both a joyful and social event for those who participate.

When Christianity reached to the Europe, missioners attempted to change the religious practices of the Celtic people instead of trying to abolish these pagan customs. They wished to introduce ideas which reflected a Christian worldview. Halloween has since integrated a mixture of traditional practices from pagan cultures and Christian beliefs. Virtually all present Halloween traditions can be traced to the ancient Celtic practice of Samhain festival. Although halloween is a holiday of many mystic customs; each one has a story behind it.

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.

Let’s start off with the way each holiday emphasizes spirits. Halloween originated from the Celtic festival known as Samhain. During this festival, people made bonfires

Borrowing from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money. Over time this tradition turned in to today modern “trick or treating”. In the late 1800s, America turned Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, and witchcraft. As the centuries changed Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century (Kammen).

Furthermore, there are many traditional rituals and superstitions associated with Halloween. Since the ancient Celts thought the nonliving roamed the earth, they created costumes out of animal pelts to ward off evil spirits. Fortunetelling and the utilization of large bonfires for sacrifices and purification were also early customs. After the Christianization of the holiday to commemorate saints and martyrs, the same festivities, bonfires, and guising remained, but October 31st was renamed All-Hallows Eve. This inevitably turned into Halloween. Similar to European traditions, America’s Halloween has also evolved throughout the years. Halloween’s recognition was originally restricted in colonial America due to its non-Christian beliefs and practices, and it was practiced at a more local level. According to an online source, “The first celebrations included ‘play parties,’ public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead and tell each other’s fortunes, dance, and sing” (“History of Halloween”). Festivities were akin to European traditions, but also included ghost stories and pranking. Beginning in the twentieth century, Halloween