Halloween

Halloween is also known as Hallowe’en – a contraction of All Hallows’ Evening, Allhalloween, All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints’ Eve. The annual holiday is a celebration observed on October 31st, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. Halloween starts a three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time of the year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints or hallows, martyrs and all other deceased people.

According to BBC Online, it is believed that many Halloween traditions originated from the ancient Celtic harvest festival Samhain, and that this Gaelic observance was Christianized by the early Church. Samhain and other similar festivals had pagan roots. Others believe that Halloween began independent of Samhain and has only Christian roots.

Halloween activities include costumed trick-or-treating by children, usually for candy or “treats,” attending Halloween costume parties, decorating with horror-themed materials, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns, lighting fires, apple bobbing & divination games, playing pranks, visiting horror-themed attractions, telling scary stories, and watching horror films.

In parts of the world, the Christian observance of All Hallows’ Eve, such as attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular.

The annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in New York City is the world’s largest Halloween parade. However, there are hundreds of Halloween parades that take place around the United States and in other countries celebrating the holiday. Additionally, personal property, public spaces and other locations may be decorated with macabre symbols such as pumpkins, witches, skeletons, ghosts, cobwebs and headstones.

The modern vision of Halloween comes from numerous sources, including Christian theology of death, national customs, works of Gothic and horror literature – such as the novels Frankenstein and Dracula, works of art, and classic horror films – such as The Mummy. Imagery of the skull, a reference to Golgotha in Christian tradition, is a reminder of death and the transitory quality of human life.