Halloween - 10/31/2009
October 31st is one of the biggest holidays of the year in terms of merchandise sold in terms of costumes, candy, and home decorations. Better known as Halloween, the day is a much more ancient holiday than the modernized version we know today.
Dating back thousands of years, Samhain was a Pagan festival that celebrated the end of the harvest season and giving thanks for a bountiful crop. The pumpkin, one of the chief crops, became a symbol of the holiday. It also marked the day in the calendar year when the mystical veil between the worlds of the living and the dead were the thinnest. This was great for communicating with the spirits of deceased loved ones, but not so great for any evil or mischievous spirits that may be milling about. In order to avoid dealing with any unpleasant spirits, people dressed in monstrous costumes to scare away these spirits or would carve pumpkins into grimacing objects known as "Jack-O'-Lanterns," and light them with candles from within.
With Christianity soon supplanting the old ways, the Catholic Church still adopted many of the older traditions and celebrated the more spiritual aspects of the holiday with the newly-named Halloween. "Halloween" as it came to be called, was originally "All Hallow's Eve" or the days before "All Souls Day" and "All Saints Day," celebrating and praying for friends and family who had passed on as well as praying to Catholic saints.
Many of these aspects of Halloween are now combined and it's a fun, festive holiday with just a touch of the macabre. Houses are decorated to look haunted, festooned with bats, spiders, and other images of creatures of the night and shades of black and orange and of course, the Jack-O-Lantern in the window. Children -- and adults -- dress up in all sorts of costumes, some beautiful, some scary, and others anywhere in between. And of course, there's the candy that trick-or-treaters go door to door for.
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