It’s celebrated on October 31 over many parts of the globe where the dominant colors of celebration are black and orange. Jack-o’-lantern is set as the order of the day and there is ample enthusiasm and exuberance all over among the masses. We are talking about Halloween.
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The zeal factor in the celebration is at its height during the Halloween. It has also been named as Hallowe’en (change in the spelling factor). Halloween, in spite of being a secular celebration, there are a handful of Christians and pagans who have posed belief in its religious overtones. The origin of the Halloween can be easily traced to the Samhain’s Celtic Festival and also in the All Saints’ Day.
Activities of Halloween
People indulge themselves in a variety of celebration activities like –
- Ghost tours
- Visit haunted attractions
- Trick-or-treating
- Carving jack-o’-lanterns
- Wearing costumes
- Pranking people
- Reading scary stories
- Watching horror movies
- Bonfires
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History of Halloween
The history of Halloween goes back to the time of ancient Celtic festival, popularly known as Samhain. It’s celebrated at the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture and was sometimes regarded as the “Celtic New Year”. This festival was usually the time when people used to take stocks of the supplies as well as slaughter livestock for their winter stores. According to the belief of the ancient Celts, the boundary between living and the deceased gets dissolved on this day and makes the dead dangerous for the living ones as they may cause problems like sickness or damaged crops. In the festival, there was frequent involvement of bonfires where bones of the slaughtered livestock were thrown. The costumes or masks worn at the Halloween were the attempt to imitate the evil spirits or placate them.
Celebration of Halloween
Halloween is celebrated with a lot of zeal. One can see various activities during the Halloween festival. ‘Trick-or-treating’ is a customary Halloween celebration for the children where they visit house to house in costume and ask for treats like candy. Halloween costumes are also one of the most prominent features of Halloween. The costumes of Halloween are traditionally of monsters like ghosts, devils, witches and skeletons. There can be Halloween costumes based of some specific horror themes like characters from movies, television shows etc.
During Halloween, you can find ‘Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF’ – a popular sight in North America where schools distribute small boxes to the trick-or-treaters for collection of small donations from the houses they visit.
There are also a number of games associate with this festival. People also celebrate the festival by playing such games. Haunted attractions are the entertainment venues designed to thrill as well as scare the patrons.
Finally, how can a festival get celebrated without food? During Halloween, people can be seen celebrating the festival by having candy apples, caramel etc. So, plan your Halloween well in advance. Have a blasting Halloween.
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