JSランゲージスクールブログ | Actual holiday of Halloween
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Today will be the final Halloween-themed blog. Today I will talk about the actual holiday of Halloween. These days, Halloween is celebrated in the United States every year on October 31st. It is a day where anyone, young or old, can dress up in a costume. Many children go trick-or-treating, which is when you go to all of your neighbors’ houses and ask for candy. The rule is that if a house turns on their outside lights, you can go to that house. If there are no lights on at the house, they don’t have candy.
From teenagers to adults, many people go to Halloween parties. At parties, many people dress up in costumes and drink alcohol. There are always big Halloween parties at clubs and bars. Many people choose to have Halloween parties at their houses also! This is how we celebrate Halloween these days, but where does Halloween come from?
The history of Halloween goes back to an old Celtic festival called Samhain. The Celts (who lived around 2000 years ago in the area around Ireland), celebrated the New Year on November 1st. This means Halloween was like their New Year’s Eve. They chose this day because it was the ending of a harvest season and the beginning of freezing winters, which were associated with death. The Celts believed that the night before the New Year, the wall between the ghost world and the human world disappeared and many ghosts were all around.
To celebrate Samhain (which was later called All-Hallows-Eve, and now Halloween), the Celts would make big bonfires and dress in costumes which were usually made of animal heads and skins. The Celtic priests, called Druids, would try to make predictions about the coming winter and year.
As time went on, this tradition changed little by little, and in the 1800s many Irish moved to the United States. They introduced some of the traditions and beliefs about spirits to people living in the U.S. Eventually, Halloween turned into the exciting night of dressing up and getting candy that we celebrate today!
