Halloween’s History!
People spend 12 billion dollars on Halloween supplies, but with that money you could clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch! TWICE! Halloween’s history is quite old. It dates back about 2,000 years ago when the Celts, who lived in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. Leading up to this day, the Celts believed that the boundaries between the dead and the living became blurred. People would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts that ventured into the world of the living. Halloween also has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, a unique religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer.
The tradition of carving pumpkins comes from a story about Stingy Jack. Stingy Jack was a young boy who was clever enough to capture the devil and promised to release him on condition that he would never go to Hell, and the devil agreed, but when he eventually died heaven wouldn’t accept him. In the end, Jack’s ghost was left to wander the Earth. And people carved scary faces on turnips and gourds to scare off his ghost and other evil spirits.
halloween traditions
Halloween has changed a lot, for example it was originally called Hallow’s Eve. But some people also ask how we created funky traditions like dressing up as our favorite characters and carving pumpkins, or as others might say, dissecting a pumpkin and stabbing it while children willingly take candy from a stranger.
Now Halloween isn’t widely celebrated for these reasons and is more about having fun with the people you love to celebrate the spooky season.