This is... Halloween!

Happy Halloween's Day!

Maybe those words are the words you most heard today...Wherever you go, there're Halloweens Day signature... Starting from people dressed in spooky costume, pumpkin jack-o-lanterns and bats decorated on every display windows, and more... Treats??

Today my blog post is Halloween, and where did it came from, why is it named Halloween, and MANY more... All is about Halloween Halloween and Halloween! It's like Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas... "This is Halloween!"

Maybe some of you didn't know where the tradition of Halloween came from. Again, I will use my 'wiki-junkie' mode to enlighten you of the history... Forgive my wiki-addict, please ;)

Halloween is derived from All-Hallows-Eve, and first attested in the 16th century. It's the night before All Saints Day, a Christian holiday, and rooted as far as the Celtic Festival of Samhain several thousand years ago. All Saints Day is celebrated the next day, which means tomorrow, November 1st, to honor all the saints.

Halloween has long been thought of as a day when the dead can return to the earth, and ancient Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off these roaming ghosts (History.com).  To explain further about Halloween's history, you have to write at the least 3 pages, whereas now I only have a little more time to wrap this up, just 'til the end of Halloween tonight. (Yeah, I know I know... I may be late to post this, should've done it a few weeks back, but I just haven't think about it yet then...).

See, the Celts, who lived 2000 years ago and stayed in the areas nowadays known as Ireland, England, and France, was having a new year on November 1st instead of January 1st. This day then marked as the end of the summer (the end of 'light'), and the beginning of the cold winter season (the beginning of the 'dark'). The ancient Celts believed that on this particular day, the boundaries between the living world and the death became thin, therefore allowing spirits to pass through. This October 31st is often called Samhain (Samuin), the festival of the death returned to earth. I admit that this is a bit spooky.

Skipping to the 800s, Christianity then influenced this Celtics beliefs. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs (History.com). Pope's purpose at the time is believed today as an attempt to replace the death festival of Samhain to a related All Saints Day (a church holiday). All Saints Day is often know as All Hallows Eve, or All Hallows Even... Shorten the Hallow-even, minus the 'v', and you get the word. And so, Halloween was born. Ta-Da!

What activities people often do in Halloween? Be Spooky... To be exact... Think of spooky themes, wearing spooky costumes, telling spooky stories to friends, watching horror movies, anything that made your spine is tingling. (0__0)

What foods are typical with Halloween? The most popular is caramel apples! Yumm... Love to have that one. Anyway caramel apples are made by rolling apples on caramels. The other foods that also popular are candy corns (a triangular candy, usually in 3 colours: white, orange, and yellow), pumpkin-based foods like pumpkin breads, or recently, cupcakes with spooky theme made icing sugar on top.

The one thing that is very popular among kids are trick or treating. Kids will go around houses, knocking on doors in spooky costumes, asking for some candies or even... Money?? Well this is new. I suppose in the old days Halloween's Treats does not include money... Maybe the 'trend' is evolving after all those years. People get bored with just accepting candies, and that after Halloween  parents must forced their children to go to dentist (which is 'spooky' and caused horror to some children). Maybe, I don't know. Cause I live in a world where there is no 'trick or treat?' every end of October, so, I don't really grasp that idea. I mean, my country is celebrating Halloween but it is not a popular festival. Only some people responded to it, and me? Well, I myself never go to a Halloween Party. Yes, a party, its the closest they can get to Halloween in my country. I'm not a party-til-u-drop kind of person anyway.

So, back to the topic, what does this trick or treat tradition mean? Treat obviously means candies, but what is the ‘trick’? Trick means a ‘threat’, that if the people inside the houses will not give candies, the kids (inside spooky costumes), will do mischievous things.

There are so many other things that you can do on Halloween... Despite of the fact that in my country there is no specific celebration (which is rather sad, because I'd love to see myself in spooky costumes, lets say, like, witch costume? That'd be cool...), Halloween is a festival and celebration for people in all range of ages, from kids to adults. 

Coming back to me, umm... I don't have anything up and special to do this Halloween. I don't do trick or treating like bunch of children does, I don't do gothical makeups and wearing spooky costumes, I don't carve those pumpkins as much as I love jack-o-lanterns (though I feel uneasy of the name Jack, you know... Jack The Ripper?), and I obviously not watching (and not going to) horror movies (cause I dislike horror genre movies that cause me nightmares and insomnia...). So what do I do, honestly? Hmm, today is just like an ordinary day for me... Going out with my family, having a chat, dinner, just spending my quality time together... I think that would be Hallowe-en-ough for me... :D

What about you? Have you had your spookiest Halloween ever?

Have a great Halloween Evening! ^__^