Hi everyone! As you know, in a few days it will be Halloween and, just thinking about all the candies I can eat, my mouth is watering.
What about you? Will you celebrate it? Will you trick or treat with your friends? But the most important question is: do you know the story of such an important holiday in England and America ? Let’s it find out together!
What does the word “Halloween” mean?
The word Halloween is from “Hallowe’en”. This is a contraction of “All Hallow’s Eve”. All Hallow’s Eve is the day before the Catholic holiday “All Saints holy day”. All Saints holy day was once called “All Hallows”.
History of Halloween
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, celebrated their new year on November 1.
This day
marked the end of the summer and the beginning of the dark and cold winter, a
period often associated with human death and ghosts.
By 43 A.D,
the Celts were conquered by the Romans and, in the course of the 400 years that
they ruled the Celtic lands, two Roman festivities were combined with the
traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
These two
festivities were “Feralia” and “The day of Pomona”; the first one was a day in
late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the
dead, the second one was a day to honor Pomona, the goddess of fruits and trees.
By the 9th
century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where the
old Celtic rites had now come to an end.
In 1000 A.D
the church made November 2 All Souls’Day to replace the Celtic festival of the
dead with a church-sanctioned holiday.
Over the
years Halloween arrived in America with a different version.
The first
celebrations included “play parties”, which were public events held to celebrate the harvest, but , in the second
half of the 19th century, America was flooded with immigrants,
These new
immigrants helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally and now, in the 21th century, we love celebrating Halloween.
Halloween’s traditions
Halloween is celebrated on the night of October 31st . Children usually wear costumes and they go to people’s homes saying “Trick or treat” to ask for candy and then the people give it to them. People sometimes dress up like ghosts, skeletons, witches or something scary.
There is also
the tradition of carving pumpkins, a true icon of Halloween.
The custom
is linked with the legend of Jack O’ Lantern, a miserly blacksmith who one day met
the devil at the bar.
How to celebrate a great Halloween
To celebrate a great Halloween you can do lots of things. For example, you can organize a dinner with your friends or a masked party. You can also do some jokes or watch a horror film eating some popcorn with your friends.
You can have hundreds of ideas, but the best is still to celebrate Halloween with your friends. But … what about a virtual party this year?
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