Where Did Halloween Come From?

We all know Halloween as the day where we all dress up in costumes, go trick or treating for some candy, and then it’s over by 8pm that night.  But do you know why we dress up and go around asking strangers for candy?  Well, it all started back in Europe, in Ireland and around the United Kingdom.  There were a group of people named the Celtics, who lived about 2,000 years ago in Ireland.  The Celts (short for Celtics) believed that November 1 marked the new year, which was the end of the summer and the start of the winter.  They looked at winter as a time where the season begins to be cold and dark and they also associated this time of the year with human death.  They believed that the night before their New Year (October 31), ghosts would walk the earth to bring trouble by damaging crops and making it uncomfortably cold for everyone.

The Celts thought that during this time, the Druids (the Celtics priest) would be able to make predictions because they’ll be closer to the spirits, which then meant that the spirits can tell the Druids their fortune.  This gathering on October 31 was known as the Samhain festival, where the Celtics would tell each other’s fortune, dress up in animal costumes (which was normally an animal’s head and skin), and they would light sacred bonfires, which they believed would help protect them during the winter.  In the 1800’s, immigrants from Ireland and the United Kingdom came to the U.S. bringing along their Halloween (Samhain to the Celtics) tradition with them.  But by the late 1800’s, America soon started to recognize Halloween as a holiday and get-together, rather than a time of warding off winter and talking to spirits.