Are you ready? I'm super ready!
For whatever reason, I actually enjoy doing a little research on things. So, what could be more fitting than doing a little research on the origin of Halloween? NOTHING.
Once upon a time, on a dark stormy night...
Just kidding. That's not how Halloween started. {I don't think. I guess it could have been raining... I wasn't there.}
Halloween probably came from a Celtic festival called Samhain (pronounced 'sah-win'), that marked the end of summer. [For us down here in Alabama and Georgia, it still feels like summer.] These festivals usually involved a bonfire, because bonfires are great and everyone loves s'mores. {That may or may not be the actual reason, but I think it has some pretty strong support.} They believed that on October 31, the dead and living worlds overlapped, allowing the dead to com back to life (spooky).
Costumes are quite possibly the most exciting part of Halloween (aside from being on a sugar high all day). The Celts also started the tradition of wearing costumes on Halloween. They believed if they disguised themselves, the spirits wandering around during Samhain wouldn't noticed them.
Trick-or-treating developed separately from Celtic traditions. FUN FACT: It was first called "souling". In medieval Ireland and Britain, poor people would walk around to other people's homes on Hallowmas [November 1]. People would give the beggars food as long as they promised to pray for the dead on All Souls Day [November 2].
Somehow, by magic probably, all of these thing came together to create the Halloween we know today. {It probably wasn't magic, sadly. It was most likely the nifty way that Americans have of taking things, turning them into their own, and making a million things for you to buy.}
More Fun Facts (about Halloween):
Costumes are quite possibly the most exciting part of Halloween (aside from being on a sugar high all day). The Celts also started the tradition of wearing costumes on Halloween. They believed if they disguised themselves, the spirits wandering around during Samhain wouldn't noticed them.
Trick-or-treating developed separately from Celtic traditions. FUN FACT: It was first called "souling". In medieval Ireland and Britain, poor people would walk around to other people's homes on Hallowmas [November 1]. People would give the beggars food as long as they promised to pray for the dead on All Souls Day [November 2].
Somehow, by magic probably, all of these thing came together to create the Halloween we know today. {It probably wasn't magic, sadly. It was most likely the nifty way that Americans have of taking things, turning them into their own, and making a million things for you to buy.}
More Fun Facts (about Halloween):
- Halloween is the second highest commercial holiday after Christmas.
- Samhainophobia is the fear of Halloween.
- Other names for Halloween include All Hallow's Eve, Witches Night, Lamswool, Snap-Apple Night, Samhain, and Summer's End.
- Halloween may also have been influenced by the Roman festival celebrating the harvest goddess, Pomona.
- The word "bonfire" come from Druid priests who threw the bones of cows into the large fires during Samhain.
- Halloween has been around for 6,000 years.
- A lot of countries see Halloween has overly commercialized by Americans.
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