Think about it, what exactely is Halloween? Well if you are in North America, halloween night is a night of crazy costumes, parties and lots of unhealthy candies for the kids.

On the streets you see people dressed in costumes of whoever they want to be. It maybe the latest action movie star, a long time hero, a simple character from a book or something completely silly. This is usually your chance to get outside of the normal you and act like a fool or someone you always wanted to be. For a moment you can forget about all the troubles of life and the stresses it brings us. Don't be afraid to smile at the silly stuff and costumes that you will see.

They are other people who see Halloween as an evil day, and they believe that noone in their right mind should partcipitate in this evil practice. This night is seen as terrifying with spirits of the dead that have come back from the dead to haunt us all. They believe that no good can come from this night.

But what do we truly know about the ancient traditions that sparked our modern Halloween celebrations? Most of us including me do not know the origins of Halloween, hence I went ahead and did a little research on my own to see where it would take me.

So what History of Halloween?

It all began around 2,000 years ago in the North Eastern Europe especially in the areas of Ireland, the UK, and Northern France.  Celts who inhibitated this area participated in sacred religious activities at night on October 31. It was their way of celebrating their new year that would begin on November 1, every year. This celebration was known to them as Samhain, this is pronounced as "sow in", and when translated it means "Summer's End".

The reason why this was celebrated on 31st of October was merely because the Celts believed that the night before the first of the new year, was the one night when all of the dead people's spirits would come back to earth and probably start causing some trouble.


Halloween Coming To America...

The first people to come to America brought it here, Halloween was left with many other traditions mainly because it was believed to be evil.

So, unfortunately for many centuries Halloween was forgotten. Then in the middle of the nineteenth century millions of immigrants sailed accross the atlantic and the brought with them all these traditions.

After their arrival here, the customs and traditions started morphing and slowly but surely Halloween was born as we know it today. It took a number of years but they eventually got it right.

They stopped having huge bonfires and started carving pumpkins and then inserting candles inside as lanterns. They got rid of the ancient costumes that included animal skins too and adopted a more modern look which included ghost costumes, ghouls, and witches costumes too.

Halloween As We See It Today...

What do you know most of the current Halloween practices are actually adopted from the really early traditions of the Celts.

Trick-or-treat for example, most probably came from what they called All Soul's Day parades that they participated in England many years ago.

The costumes probably came from when they wore masks, to hide them and make the wondering spirits so they think were nicer spirits that where just wandering about and leave them alone.

The incooporation of disguises and the leaving of food offerings outside their homes, was all intended to keep the wondering off the peoples doorsteps and moving.

Nowadays, there are thousands of different costumes available on Halloween. Forget the traditional witches, goblins, and ghosts of the past. Halloween costumes are now a billion dollar business and people spend lots of time and money searching for the right one.

As you can clearly see Halloween has indeed come a long way. Regardless of whether you like it or not, the truth of the fact is this is the second most celebrated holiday in the US. And from the looks of things it ain't going anywhere fast.

Since people love to step away from realities of life pretending you are someone else usually helps. Thanks to Halloween we can all enjoy this once every year.