October 31st: It is widely believed that many Halloween traditions originated from Celtic harvest festivals which may have pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, and that this festival was Christianized as Halloween.Some academics, however, support the view that Halloween began independently as a solely Christian holiday. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related guising), attending Halloween costume parties, decorating, carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing and divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories and watching horror films.In many parts of the world, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead remain popular, although elsewhere it is a more commercial and secular celebration. Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes and soul cakes.
Halloween starts out as an excuse for overly obsessive parents to dress their little infants and toddlers as the cutest thing they could think of. Costumes range from ladybugs to Superman and everything else under the sun. Your Halloween night includes taking some pictures for the holiday cards and getting pushed around in a stroller or wheel barrel to a few of the neighbors houses just so they could see how cute you were. After that, a nice nap is well deserved and your head hits the pillow when the sun is still shining high up in the sky.
As you start to get a little bit older, you start to decorate baskets and pillowcases to fill to the brim as you walk house to house with your parents and some of your elementary school friends in search for the house with the best candy. In my case, this was the house in the neighborhood across the street with the king size chocolate bars.
When you reach middle school, everything starts to turn a little bit awkward. You feel as though you are too old to go trick-or-treating but you're still too young to go to parties and do things a long those lines. Instead, most middle schoolers’s find themselves staying home with their parents eating candy out of the bowl that you were supposed to be giving away.
Now here come’s the fun part. Kids in high school all the way to college and adulthood, you're never too old to go to a Halloween party. This gives everyone the opportunity to dress like someone they are not. Some have the traditional bloody punch and the apple bobbing game and others have more modern and extreme festivities for everyone to enjoy.
With Halloween coming up, I hope you all have a day full of candy, creative costumes, and lots of sugar!!!
