The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

THANKS!!

dress as the boston tea party!

http://www.buycostumes.com/Tea-Party-Hostess-Adult-Costume/19909/ProductDetail.aspx?REF=AFC-datafeed&AID=10273928&PID=2100672&SID=-sc29030284

http://www.buycostumes.com/Teapot-Adult-Costume/32707/ProductDetail.aspx

http://www.anythingcostumes.com/testeys-tea-bag-costume.html

Nowadays, neo-paganism celebrates it under many of its old names from a variety of ancient pagan traditions, most commonly it is called Samhain (pronounced "SAM-wen"). It is called the witches' new year and is a day for honoring the end of the growing season and nature's bounty as well as a day to honor one's ancestors. It is, in a sense, a death festival, but with the promise of rebirth on the horizon. The death is temporary and the sun god is reborn on the winter solstice (Yule) but that's a completely seperate holiday. Life is seen as a cycle and treated as such, so death, while sad, is not some terrifying thing to be feared. It is honored, like birth, on Halloween/All Hallow's Eve/ Samhain/etc.

Granted there has been lots of modern era influence, such as Christian superstitions fed into it, as well as other urban myths that have evolved into the mainstream Halloween we see marketed today. It is not to worship Satan, but to honor the end of the growing season and to reflect on the reality of death and await the coming of new life. The costumes come from the Central American holiday Day of the Dead. The revelers would dress up in elaborate costumes in the fashion of their ancestors to honor them and still practice it to this day.

Personally, as a pagan, I view it in its revamped form which was salvaged from the remnants of what it once was. BUT, that certainly doesn't stop me from dressing up and giving little kids candy =D

Folk customs surrounding All Souls are the origin of the belief that the dead return on Halloween. People would visit cemeteries, decorate relatives' graves, and leave food offerings for the dead. Pagan Roman customs may have influenced the practice of offering food to the dead. During Parentalia and Feralia, which were celebrated in February, Romans offered food and flowers at gravesites. Also, All Saints original date of May 13 coincided with the final day of Lemuria which was another festival of the dead in pre-Christian Rome (where All Saints originated). Lemuria involved beans as part of the rites and today a treat called "beans of the dead" is popular in Italy for All Saints.

Samhain had an influence on All Hallows in Ireland, and that is the version that turned into what we know as Halloween today. Samhain in the medeival Irish sagas and records was a day of great importance. It was a day of feasting, games, drinking, great battles in some accounts and a peaceful feast in others, heroic feats, and interaction between mortals and the realm of the faires (divine or semi-divine beings who could be dangerous, and not the little creatures with wings that we think of today). In Ireland the customs that are associated with Halloween are the same as the ones mentioned in the sagas as being part of Samhain: divination, partying, the belief that supernatural beings mingle with or harass humans on this night. The word 'Samhain' has gone through numerous changes and spellings (Samuin, Saman, Samain, Samhuinn, Samhna) and its etymological evolution is somewhat confusing. Today 'Samhain' is the Irish word for the month of November, although it used to mean November 1 or the feast day of Samhain. Oiche Shamnha is Irish for Halloween; it means the "eve of Samhain" or the "eve of November 1".

All Saints and All Souls celebrations in the Americas can be traced back to the arrival of the Spanish missionaries and French Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Native Americans adopted these Christian traditions and combined them with remnants of their native celebrations. These feast days are still celebrated today.

In the nineteenth century Irish and Scottish immigrants settled in the United States and brought their Halloween customs with them. Unlike the more solemn, purely Catholic observance of All Saints/All Souls Day typical in continental Europe, the Irish version was more of a fun harvest festival in nature. Victorian-era Americans adopted the holiday with enthusiasm.

Halloween is now considered an American holiday, even though it is a bank holiday in Ireland. In many parts of Europe All Saints is still celebrated in its traditional Catholic form, in other places modern Halloween is celebrated side-by-side with All Saints, and in places like Mexico and South America it has become a separate and distinct holiday (that has retained a strong Catholic flavor). In many European and South American countries, as well as Mexico, All Saints is a public holiday.

Here you go:
The practice of actually saying "trick-or-treat" is purely North American and the earliest mention comes from newspapers from the 1920's (1930's in the U.S.). Despite the fact that there are ample mentions of Halloween vandalism prior to the advent of trick-or-treat, people are divided on whether it was invented to curb this vandalism. Some people in Canada and the United States practiced some other begging practices prior to this, but those appear to have been more localized traditions. They were practiced at Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween and included belsnickling and guising. Although the Irish and Scottish brought their version of All Hallows (Hallowe'en) over to the United States in the mid-19th century they didn't bring begging customs with them. There were, however, begging and costuming practices that had taken place in parts of Europe since the middle ages: guising, mumming, wassailing, belsnickling, and souling. Souling was an All Saints/All Souls (Hallowe'en) custom where children would offer prayers for the souls in pugatory in exchange for "soul cakes". If the ancient Celts dressed in costumes or practiced begging customs we have no evidence of it. There also weren't any begging or costuming practices associated with the original All Saints.

Here is the actual 1927 article mentioning trick or treat in Canada. You will have to zoom in - there is an article about a bonfire and one about trick or treat:

http://lethbridgeherald.newspaperarchive.com/cache2/68673276.pdf

And here are some stories about similar practices in the U.S. for Christmas and Thanksgiving:

http://www.winchesterstar.com/article_details.php?ArticleID=3480

http://www.greenpt.com/anytngftkg.htm

I remember being Tinkerbell and a Pumpkin when I was a baby, but that is only from pictures.

I'm 21 and I still wear a costume!

♥

any suggestions? thanks!!

Start with describing Halloween night... the sounds, sight, smells, etc. Capture the audience and then lead in by asking a question about how that all started.

Here are some links if you really want to know the truth about this subject.

http://www.ucg.org/booklets/HH/halloween.asp

http://www.gnmagazine.org/radio/halloween.htm

http://www.cbcg.org/special_offer.htm