Halloween History: What is Halloween and why do we celebrate Halloween
Here’s everything you need to know about Halloween History, What is Halloween and why do we celebrate Halloween
We celebrate Halloween every year on 31st October by dressing up in fearsome masks or fictional characters and going out to trick or treat. But today, let’s take out a moment to analyze what Halloween is and Why do we celebrate it.
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Background of Halloween
Halloween started in ancient history when Celts in Samhain figured that ghosts and spirits can easily pass through their world and get a chance to ruin their beautiful crops. They decided that these spirits needed to be scared away in order to ensure happiness and peace in the world. The Celts arranged a giant festival and offered food and water to the ghosts in the hopes to scare away them away. Eventually, they made this custom an official religious tradition of Celtic religion.
How did Halloween become so famous between Christians?
Later with the advent of Romans in Samhain, Christianity started becoming a very popular religion. The Romans decided that Halloween is an ancient tradition and should not be completely wiped out from the culture, so they combined the festival with All Hallows Eve in an effort to merge the two traditions and to promote harmony in the area. This was also an effort to unite the nations and move more people to accept Christianity as their religion.
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Ancient Halloween Traditions:
Churches would light vigil for saints of Christianity before the festival, and celebrate the festival by warding off evil spirits the next day. Since then, there has been a lot of changes in the traditions of Halloween. In the 1850s, beggars started wearing ghost costumes and steal the food meant to be there for the ghosts. Religious people changed the tradition and started placing food out for the beggars instead of ghosts in order to spread a message of empathy and kindness. In the late 1870s, the tradition changed into an extremely entertaining activity where children would dress up as ghosts and go out to showcase their different talents in order to earn sweets, candies, and money from their neighbors and relatives.
As time passed, the tradition of Halloween spread like fire from Europe and Britain to America. The tradition of placing out the food for beggars or ghosts and evil spirits was completely wiped out by the 1900s and new traditions of parties and dressing up were made by merging up American culture with the original Halloween traditions.
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Present Halloween Traditions:
Halloween is still celebrated as a festival where children go out for trick or treating. Some children still portray their different talents, while some only dress up and show up for the candy. The tradition of giving out money and fruits on Halloween to the kids or the beggars is long gone, however, candy is still given out to the kids who come on Halloween. People do not believe in ghosts anymore. However, they love to dress up as one. And thanks to Halloween, they get a chance to fulfill their desires of becoming and acting like a ghost every October 31st. The Celts of Samhain may be long gone but their traditions may live with us forever.
