Why Do We Celebrate Halloween? Find Out Right Here!

Halloween goes back nearly 2000 years when it first began to be celebrated by the Celts who had their homes in Ireland, UK and the northern parts of France. The Celts celebrated their New Year on the first of November and the origins of Halloween go back to this time in the Celtic festival of Samhain. Samhain was celebrated the night before the New Year.

The Celts believed that the New Year marked the end of the summer. The end of summer was significant to the Celts because they were pastoral people as opposed to agricultural people; and the end of summer meant a radically different style of life in the winter months.

Cattle were brought down from the hills and people got together in houses for long winter nights of handicrafts and telling of stories. These dark, winter months were associated with death by the Celts. On October 31st, Samhain was celebrated by the Celts and they believed that this was the day when the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. This happened because of the blurring of the boundaries between the living world and the deceased.

The 'trick or treat' probably originated in the English All Souls' Day parades when the poor would plead for food from the wealthier people. The wealthy families gave them pastries called 'soul cakes' and asked the poor to pray for their relatives who were no longer living. This morphed into people giving candies to children who came to their house dressed up as witches or ghosts and if someone refused to give candy (treat), a practical joke (trick) would probably be played upon him. Another theory is of people leaving food outside their homes so that the wandering ghosts would not enter their homes.

The Celts felt winter to be a frightening time and chances of running short of food were always there and herein lies another reason for celebrating Halloween by dressing up. It can be traced back to the Celtic tradition of covering themselves in masks and costumes so that the wandering ghosts would not recognize them if the Celts happened to be out of their homes in search of food.

The Celts carved faces on potatoes in Ireland but when they migrated to America, they found pumpkins to be more plentiful and hence, the system of carved pumpkins took shape. In America, Halloween is the second biggest commercial holiday and people have made a religion of dressing up in scary costumes and decorating their homes to make it look haunted. All the real 'eeriness' of the festival has actually got removed to be replaced by a sense of community spirit and the scariness is done out of fun and not actual fear.