It's that spooky time of the year once again as everybody starts to celebrate Halloween. This usually means dressing up in fancy costumes and taking your children and grandchildren trick or treating around your local area.
Where did this fascination come from though? Why do we all dress up a ghosts and goblins? Here's a little guide to Halloween so that you can all know this history of this unique holiday.
History of Halloween - Celtic Beginnings
The way we all celebrate Halloween is considered to be an American tradition, but many believe that it actually originated in Celtic Britain. The Celtic people would celebrate their new year on November 1 and this day would also mark the end of summer and the beginning of the dark, cold winter. This was the time of the year which was also associated with human deaths.
This lead the Celts into believing a theory about the changing of the seasons. They believed that on the night before their new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.
On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain - when the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. During this celebration, people would build sacred bonfires to burn crops and animals as sacrifices. The Celts would also were costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, as well as trying to tell each other's fortunes.
A few hundred years later, when the influence of Christianity had spread, the church would make November 2 All Soul's Day - a day to honour the dead. It is widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday.
This day was celebrated in a similar way to Samhain, with bonfires, parades and people dressing up as devils and saints.
Dressing up Origins
As we already know, people have been dressing up to celebrate some form of Halloween since Celtic Britain. Whether it was to protect themselves from the spirits or to celebrate in their community - dressing up has always been present.
Through the Americanisation of the celebration, costumes have become more popular over the years. Costumes can now be anything from the traditional ghosts and ghouls, to zombies and even 'dead' versions of famous people.
Creativity is a must when it comes to modern day Halloween.
Americanisation - Trick or Treating
The term Trick of Treat was first used in America in 1927 - with the traditions behind it coming from immigrants to the country. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money. In the aforementioned All Soul's Day, poor people would beg for food and families would given them pastries called "soul cakes."
It was at the beginning of the 1900s when Halloween parties for children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. At this time however parents were encouraged in the media and community to take anything scary or grotesque out of their celebrations.
The practice of trick or treat came back into fashion during the 40s and 50s on wards following the baby boom. Trick or treating was an affordable way for a community to celebrate Halloween and has been a constant every since.
It is estimated that Americans spend around $6billion annually on Halloween.
Carving Pumpkins
The pumpkin part of Halloween also dates back to the Samhain Festival. Back during this time, Gaels would carve turnips to ward off the spirits and to stop fairies from settling in houses.
There is a folkloric story of Stingy Jack which also led to pumpkins becoming popular during Halloween. Jack is said to have tricked the devil into buying him a drink. As a result he was not let into heaven or hell and when he died the devil threw him a burning ember - which he kept in a turnip.
The influx of Irish immigrants in the 1840s to North America could not find any turnips to carve, as was tradition, so they used the more readily available pumpkin into which they carved scary faces.
By the 1920s pumpkin carving was widespread across America.
We hope that you all enjoy Halloween 2016! Please remember to stay safe, whether you are out and about with your family or just inside your home.
