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Halloween's Origins


             Halloween is one of the oldest holidays that we still celebrate today, although not too many people know why we celebrate this holiday. Halloween was first called Samhain, and had emerged in Ireland as a Celtic holiday. Samhain was a festival, that marked the ending of Summer and the beginning of Winter. The Celtic's would extinguish their fires in their homes on October 31st. The Celtic Priests would gather at this time and light a bonfire, from which the people would all re-light their fire's from, beginning the new year with an act of unity. Today we celebrate this holiday in a very different way. Children dress up in costumes of their favorite super-hero or princesse, and walk around their neighborhoods asking for candy; then spending the next couple of days stuffing their faces with all the candy they collected. When looking at how we celebrate this holiday, from when it was called Samhain to now, as we call it Halloween. It may appear as though there is little or no connection between the two, but in reality there is. One similarity is the costumes. The Celtic people would dress up in ghoulish costumes in hopes to scare away any spirits that might want to possess them. Although the reason to why we wear the costumes has changed, the clothes have not. We continue to practice this tradition of wearing scary costumes of hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches. The Celtics believed that the spirits of the dead would be able to possess the living on October 31st. It was possible because the spirit world intermingled with the living, on that date, giving the spirits one chance to and take over a living persons body. Or at least this is what the Celtic people believed to be true, that all laws of time and space along with there worldly boundaries was suspended for this one night. So this is why we dress up in scary costumes and let are children parade around the neighborhoods nosily, so they can scare away any spirts looking to possess them, or us.


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