Many people would admit that Halloween is their favorite holiday. They love the act of dressing up and pretending to be someone else for the day or night. They love decorating their homes in ghoulish fashion. They even love handing out trick or treat candy to all the neighborhood kids. Yet, do they or you realize the real reason why we celebrate Halloween?
To begin with, you should understand that the Halloween we celebrate today is a mixture of many different ancient religious beliefs, along with ancient traditions and folk traditions. These beliefs came from a number of different sources including: the Celtic, the Catholic Romans, and the Europeans. Their beliefs were just mixes all together to become the modern day version of the Halloween we know.
Most people will say that Halloween originates from the ancient times as a day that the dead could walk the Earth, again. The ancient Celtics, over two thousand years ago, would have bon fires and wear costumes, in hopes of warding off these ghosts. They believed that these ghosts could cause all types of damage, even damage to their crops. They also believed that during this time the Celetic Priests were able to make predictions about the future. The presence of these ghosts gave them this ability. This gave the Celictics comfort during the hard winter that was approaching. To celebrate the rising of the dead and the powers the priests had, bonfires were burnt, animals were sacrificed and costumes were worn.
The Romans celebrated the passing of the dead during the day known as “Feralia.” This day was celebrated in late October. The second day they celebrated The Goddess of Fruit and Trees, “Pommona.” The symbol they used was apples. This is where the tradition of bobbing for apples originated.
In the 800’s, Pope Boniface IV, began the holiday that is known as All Saint’s Day. This is a day in which the saints and martyrs are honored. His hope was to replace the tradition of honoring the dead with a Christian type of holiday that the church sanctioned.
When the Europeans came to America, they came with many different Halloween type beliefs. Some of these beliefs came with the use of costumes. These beliefs began to emerged, along with the beliefs of the Indians and a new Halloween began to form. These first Halloweens consisted of play parties, celebrations of the harvest, groups of people telling stories of the dead, fortune telling, singing and dancing.
In the 1800’s, Halloween began to change, again. There were more neighborhood parties. The holiday seems to be centered on community.
In the 1920’s and 1930’s, communities began having Halloween parades. Yet, there was also a lot of vandalism going along with this holiday.
Finally, in the 1950’s, community leaders designated that this holiday should be more about the children. Trick or treating was established in many cities.
Today, Halloween is a big holiday. An estimated 6.9 billion dollars is spent on this holiday. Reports say that it is the second highest commercial holiday.
Sources:
history.com