Halloween. A fun, frightful holiday all across the globe. Is it made for scaring? For costumes? For fun? Or for the candy? Well, those are all essential parts of this spooky time of year, but let’s take a glimpse to the past to see what it’s really all about… 

Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31, and Halloween this year, 2020 will occur on Saturday, October 31. The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts.

 In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints.  The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities like trick-or-treating, carving jack-o-lanterns, festive gatherings, donning costumes and eating treats.

 Now that you have an idea of where this holiday started, we’ll talk about what it is today. Today, as you probably know, people go around in costumes, asking for candy saying, “trick or treat” to whoever answers the door. Thousands of kids go around, door to door on this fun night. The costumes range from witches, zombies, to famous WWE wrestlers, or characters from movies.

 Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors. Halloween is a fun holiday for most people, but some do not enjoy it. People with religious restrictions cannot celebrate halloween due to their religious rules. Did you know that every year about 6 billion dollars is spent on candy, and 600 million  pounds of candy are bought, and consume about 90 million pounds of candy annually.  So on this holiday, throw on a costume, enjoy yourself, just don’t eat too much candy!!