Annually, on 31st October, many people around the world celebrate Halloween. It falls before All Saints’ Day, and is also sometimes called All Hallows’ Eve and Hallowmas Eve. Around this time of the year costume parties are held and children go trick and treat. People dress up as witches, ghosts, and animal figures associated with Halloween, or as fictional characters from horror films, television shows or books, and attend Halloween parties at venues which are supposedly haunted.
Schools treat this as a time to educate kids on the history associated with the occasion and celebrate the day by hosting competitions and awarding students for their creative costumes. The most fun part of this festival is ‘trick and treat’ in which kids go from door to door in their neighbourhood and either ask for candies or a trick to entertain them. Many homes are decorated to in the Halloween theme with spider webs, jack o lanterns, skeletons, bats etc . Halloween is in observance in a lot of countries such Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Halloween basically originated from an ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain, which marks the start of winter and the beginning of a new year. It was believed that during Samhain the spirits of the dead could visit the Earth. This day later became known as All Hallows’ Eve during early Christian times and was a time to pray for the dead and honor saints. Today both pagan and Christian elements have blended into the modern celebration of this popular festival.
