October thirty-first marks a holiday that leaves kids and adults alike howling from fun and fear. While many children celebrate Halloween by trick-or-treating with their friends and family, not many know the true origins of this day. While Halloween is really a mix of a few different holidays, the earliest holiday dates back almost 2,000 years ago. It started with a Celtic festival called Samhain.
Samhain was celebrated on October thirty-first like Halloween, because that was the day before the Celtic new year which was November first. The Celts believed that on the last day of the year the dead returned to earth. They believed that the ghosts helped Druids, Celtic priests, to make more accurate predictions for the future. The prophecies were a comforting thing for the people to hold onto during the harsh winter. To celebrate this event, Druids would build huge bonfires, and the people would burn crops and animals as sacrifices. They would also dress up in costumes made of animal heads and skins. After the festivities subsided, the people would return home and light fires in their hearths with pieces from the sacred bonfire to keep them warm and protected throughout the winter.
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Americans took from newfound Irish and English traditions and began going around from house to house and asking for food and money. This became the trick-or-treating we have today. Also on Halloween, women would try to discover the name of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings, or mirrors. As we get later into the 1800’s there was a movement to take anything frightening or grotesque out of Halloween, and make the holiday more about community. Soon the most common way to celebrate Halloween was to have a Halloween party with games, foods, and festive costumes. As a result of this movement Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious