Halloween is a traditional celebration held on October 31st. Today, Halloween is an excuse for Halloween theme costume parties, and entertainment with horror films, haunted houses and other activities around the popular spooky themes of ghosts, witches, Dracula, werewolves and other aspects of the supernatural.

Children love to dress up in Halloween costumes and go from door-to-door in their neighborhood following the old tradition of trick-or-treating, collecting sweets and gifts, sometimes money, as a way of warding off bad luck for the people giving, and the people receiving.

Halloween began as an ancient Celtic festival in Great Britain and Ireland, the festival of Samhain (pronounced SOW-ann), which was the druids’ New Year’s festival.

In addition to being the Celtic new year, it also marked the time when it was believed that people could commune with the souls of the dead, hence its later association with All Saint’s and All Soul’s Days on November 1st and 2nd in the Gregorian calendar.

A vigil for the festival of All Saints was held on All Hallows Evening on October 31. In the vernacular of the times, All Hallows Evening became Hallowe’en and later the Halloween we know today.

The observation of Halloween has survived most strongly among the Celtic descendants, the Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Manx communities, and through the Irish in particular, Halloween traditions were brought to America.

Halloween has gained in popularity in the past few decades, and has now become the second biggest shopping holiday in the USA.

In turn, as part of American pop culture, Halloween has spread in popularity to most corners of the English speaking western world, and increasingly into Western Europe in recent times

The celebration of Halloween survived most strongly in Ireland. It marked an end of harvest festival, and was often celebrated in each community with a bonfire to ward off the evil spirits.

Children would go from door to door in disguise as creatures from the underworld to collect treats, mainly fruit, nuts and the like for the festivities.

These were used for playing traditional games like eating an apple on a string or bobbing for apples and other gifts in a basin of water, without using your hands.