Halloween Festival

Halloween is a Christian festival celebrated across the world on October 31st every year. The basic roots of this festival lies in Celtic festival of Sanhain. The festival very often associated with colors like orange and black making patterns or symbols like Jack- O- Lantern. The various activities associated with the celebrations of the festival includes wearing horror costumes, trick or treating, bonfires, visiting haunted decorated places etc.

Origin and History
Halloween is actually the abbreviated form of the word Al’ Hallows Even since it is celebrated on the eve of Al’ Hallows day or most popularly All Saint’s Day which is celebrated as a religious festival in various Northern European culture on 1st November, the day after halloween. The history of Halloween lies in the ancient Celtic festival called Samhain which is the festival celebrated for the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture . They earlier believed that on this day that is on 31st October the separation between the dead and living souls vanished and the deceased souls cause problem for the people. That is why bonfires were lit and bones of the dead animals were thrown in it. The tradition of attempting of imitating the evil spirits gave birth to the custom of wearing ghost masks.

Symbols and tradition
According to an Irish legend, Jack-o-lantern was a greedy,drunk old farmer. He tricked the devil by carving a cross on the tree trunk and thus capturing him. The devil placed a curse on the Jack-O-Lantern that he would wander forever at the nights with the sole light from a candle inside of a hollow turnip. The culture of carving pumpkins came from the legend.

However in North America pumpkins are abundant and also easier to carve and are used for carving into frightening faces with a light in it and place it on their doorstep after dark by many families. People dress in various horrifying fictious creatures like Vampires, Pumpkin Men, Zombies, Frankenstein, mummies, skeletons etc. It is also told that if an unmarried looks into the mirror in the night of Halloween, the face of her future husband will be shown. Various games are organized and people decorate their houses with lots of scary and spooky stuff.