To be honest: I've never given much thought about Halloween. Why we celebrate it, why we wear costumes or why we go trick-or-treating. When I was young, I just did it.
But know I've watched a few videos and it turned out to be quite interesting.
Let's start with the historical background. It all started with a celtic festival on November 1st called Samhain. On the night before Samhain, on October 31, celtic people thought that the dead could return as ghosts. To keep the ghosts at bay the celtic people left them food and wine in front of the door and sometimes even presents which children made for them.
To stay safe the celtic people only left their house with masks, so the ghosts could not recognize them.
Later the pope made this day to the "all hallows day" to celebrate the Saints - known or unknown.
After the Europeans had accepted this tradition the "all hallows day" became "all hallows eve" and as a shortage of that it has became the nowaday well known Halloween. Although it is still the same Festival, lots of things have changed.
The ghosts of the dead became a model for our Halloween costumes.
Trick-or-treating has developed out of two traditions.
The first one called souling, where poor people went from house to house and said that they would pray for dead relatives in exchange for pastries or sweets and the second one called guising, where young people collect sweets and other stuff as a reward for singin, telling jokes or doing poetry.
To sum up: Despite of the fact that "Halloween" is just a tradition, which celtic immigrants brought to America, it is the most celebrated day after Christmas.
I will celebrate it too, but I won't go trick-or-treating instead I will invite some friends. We'll have something to drink and go to parties afterwards. I think the way i celebrate Halloween changes with the Age. As a kid, it is normal that you go trick-or-treating but as a teenager you have other interests than collecting sweets.
I bet you didn't know all of that information, at least I know that i didn't. So sometimes it is a good idea to just take your laptop and look up the kind of stuff you do or the Holidays you celebrate and find out why. :)
