Halloween Gifts
Friday, October 9th, 2009Halloween is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. It is a fun holiday when children will dress in their favorite costumes and go out trick-or-treating for candies. This article examines the origin of Halloween, and provides some ideas for Halloween gifts.
Halloween has its origin in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain. The festival of Samhain was a celebration of the end of the harvest season, and could be regarded as the Celtic New Year. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundary between the alive and the dead disappeared, and the dead became dangerous for the living by causing illness, damaged crops, and other problems. Costumes and masks were worn at the festival to mimic the evil spirits or placate them.
The name “Halloween” is shortened from All Hallows’ Eve as it is the eve of “All Hallows’ Day”, which is now known as All Saints’ Day. Although All Saints’s Day now occurs one day after Halloween, the Celts started every day at sunset of the night before. Hence Samhain became “the evening of All Hallows”. Traditional activities for Halloween include costume parties, carving pumpkins to make Jack-o-lanterns (carved pumpkin lit by a candle inside), trick-or-treating, or reading scary stories. Irish immigrants carried versions of these tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Traditional characters of Halloween include ghosts, witches, vampires, bats, black cats, goblins, skeletons, pumpkin-man, scarecrow and fictional figures such as Dracula. Halloween gifts often include one of these characters for the festivities.





