Mysterious Facts of Halloween Nights, How Did Halloween originate in the US and Way to Celebrate Halloween Eve!
The sacred and spooky festival of Halloween is just around the corner. This is a holiday of mystery and magic, superstition and sugar sweetness.
While many of us know what Halloween is and why we celebrate Halloween some might not know how Halloween started and when did Halloween originate in the US. So, without any further ado, we will help you out to know the unknown facts about Halloween.
As per the Christian Calendar, November 1 is marked as All Hallow’s Day, alternatively popular as All Saint’s Day. This is a holy day for Catholics to honor all the recognized and unrecognized saints who have entered heaven and pray for departed souls to reach heaven.
How did Halloween originate in the US?
People celebrate the evening before All Hallow’s Day, on October 31 as Hallow’s eve. Hallow’s eve is more commonly popular as Halloween, every year.
Halloween originated from Celtic region of Britain, Ireland and Northwest Europe from a pagan festival of Samhain to mark the end of harvesting season. It is a harvesting festival that mark the end of the summer and beginning of the winter. This marks a celebration and preparation of transition to the darker side. The Celts celebrated their new year on November 1.
Gaels, who were originally pagan, believed that this was the day when the dead returned to earth. They believed that the boundary between the living and the dead would fade. Gaels also believed it would make it easier for the spirits of the dead to pass through earth and to the living.
Halloween Rituals and History
For this very reason, they would light bonfires to keep themselves safe from evil spirits and brace themselves for the winter that was coming. They would also carve turnips and place an ember in them to ward off evil spirits.
Believers would, furthermore, offer food and drink to appease and welcome spirits into their home. They would disguise themselves as angels or demons or saints so as to impersonate and trick the dead into thinking that they were fellow spirits. The people believed that they felt closer to their deceased on this day and left treats and lit candle lights to help guide them back to their spiritual realm.
During the 11th Century, in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, children dressed up as angels or demons or saints. Then they went from door to door trading for food and sweets. In exchange, they prayed for the soul of the dead to rest in heaven.
During the 19th Century, the trade shifted from praying for the souls to poem or songs. Later, the trade of disguise evolved as a trade of threating pranks for sweets. This is how the modern day Trick or Treat has found its establishment.
In a very similar way, with the immigration of Irish to North America in 1927, pumpkins which were readily available in North America started being carved in place of the turnips.
Halloween!
The present-day Halloween celebration includes pumpkin carving, treating children to save them from being tricked, and impersonating as spirits and ghosts and celebrating horror in good humor. People bring out the prankster in them and dare for innovative costumes and pranks.
Commercially, Halloween is the festival with second largest consumption of over $2.5 billion annually on a purchase of candies, costumes, decorations, and party goods, the first being Christmas.
Maybe in all the pranks and parties of Halloween, it is not only us who disguise as ghosts and spirits but they disguise as themselves too. Hope you have a happy Halloween and a good horror story to share.
Also, know what to gift your loved one this Christmas!
Look out for the pranks and treats for your sweet tooth.