Halloween

Halloween is celebrated in the United States and some other countries on the night of October 31. For children, the most important part of Halloween is dressing in costumes and going door-to-door, ringing doorbells and calling out "Trick or treat!" The reward for these costumed children is a plethora of sweets. 

Although Halloween is celebrated in much of the Western world, we will focus on its origins and how it is currently celebrated in the United States. Halloween is most widely observed in the United States, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom and Canada. Irish, Scots and other immigrants brought older versions of the tradition to North America in the 19th century. By the late 20th century, most other Western countries had embraced Halloween as an extension of American pop culture.

The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe'en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before "All Hallows Day." The holiday was a religious festival in various northern European pagan traditions until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries and given a Christian interpretation. 

The origins of the modern American Halloween lie in Great Britain and Ireland where the pagan Celts celebrated the Day of the Dead on All Hallows Day (November 1st). The spirits supposedly rose from the dead and, in order to attract them, food was left on doorsteps. To scare off the evil spirits, the Celts wore masks. When the Romans invaded Great Britain, they augmented the existing tradition with their own, which is both a celebration of the harvest and of honoring the dead. Generations later, these traditions were transported to the United States and other places such as Canada and Australia.

Halloween in North America
Anoka, Minnesota, USA, is the self-proclaimed "Halloween Capital of the World" and celebrates the holiday with a large civic parade.

Salem, Massachusetts, USA, also has laid claim to the title "Halloween Capital of the World," even as Salem has tried to separate itself from its history in the annals of witchcraft. Despite those efforts, the city still sees a great deal of tourism because of the Salem witch trials, especially around Halloween. Salem is well known for its late 17th century witch trials. This was a time when many innocent people were accused of being witches. Some of them were killed. It was thought that if a person was a witch, she wouldn't drown when thrown into water. Obviously, this was a no-win situation for anyone accused of witchcraft. If a woman was thrown into deep water and drowned, her innocence was posthumously declared. If she was thrown into water and survived, she was then deemed a witch and killed for that crime.

Customs
In North America people believed that it was unlucky for a black cat to cross one's path, to come into homes, or to travel on ships.

In the United States trick-or-treaters know that they are welcome when they see homes with carved-out, lighted-inside pumpkins in their windows. These pumpkins, also known as jack-o'-lanterns, can also decorate the front porches and walkways of homes.
The North American tradition of trick-or-treat originates from the idea that one must be kind to dead ancestors or they will play a trick on you.

The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds, Orson Welles' radio adaptation of the H. G. Wells' classic novel of the same name, was performed by the Mercury Theatre on the Air as a Halloween special on October 30, 1938. Reportedly, the live broadcast frightened many listeners into believing that an actual Martian invasion was in progress.

Symbols

Jack-o'-lanterns may be carved with funny faces or scary faces or even dressed up to resemble recognizable public figures.

Halloween's theme is anything spooky or scary, especially those things involving death, magic, or mythical monsters. Commonly-associated Halloween characters include ghosts, ghouls, witches, bats, black cats, spiders, goblins, zombies, skeletons and demons, as well as certain fictional figures like Dracula and Frankenstein's monster. Homes are often decorated with these symbols around Halloween.

Black and orange are the traditional colors of Halloween. In modern Halloween images and products, purple, green, and red are also prominent.

Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins and scarecrows, are also reflected in Halloween symbolism.
The carved jack-o'-lantern, lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their home's doorstep after dark. The practice was originally intended to frighten away evil spirits or monsters.

Trick-or-treating 
The main event of modern U.S.-style Halloween is trick-or-treating, in which children dress up in costume disguises and go door-to-door in residential neighborhoods, ringing each doorbell and yelling "Trick or treat!" The occupants of the house (who might themselves dress in a scary costume) will then hand out small candies, miniature chocolate bars or other treats. Some American homes will use sound effects and fog machines to help set a spooky mood. Other house decoration themes (that are less scary) are used to entertain younger visitors. Children can often accumulate many treats on Halloween night, filling up entire pillow cases or shopping bags. Younger children often carry a plastic pumpkin bucket.

Tricks play less of a role in modern Halloween, though Halloween night is often marked by vandalism such as windows being soaped, houses being egged, or trees being strewn with toilet paper. Before indoor plumbing was the norm, the tipping over or displacing of outhouses was a popular (and smelly, no doubt!) form of intimidation. Also, casting flour into the faces of feared neighbors is an outdated custom no longer practiced.

Typical Halloween costumes have traditionally been monsters such as vampires, ghosts, witches, and devils. This started because the spirits abroad at night were thought to be essentially bent on doing harm and therefore the best way to protect oneself was to fool the spirits into believing that you were one of them. In recent years, it has become common for costumes to be based on other themes. Many people now dress up as characters from a TV show or movie or choose a recognizable face from the public sphere, such as a politician. In 2004, for example, George W. Bush and John F. Kerry were both popular mask costumes in America. In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, for example, costumes of firefighters, police officers, and United States military personnel became popular among children. In 2004, an estimated 2.15 million children in the United States were expected to dress up as Spider-Man, the year's most popular costume. 

A child usually "grows out of" trick-or-treating by his or her teenage years. Trick-or-treating by teenagers is accepted, but generally discouraged with some genial ribbing by those handing out candy. "Aren't you getting a little old for this," a trick-or-treating teen might be asked. Instead, teenagers and adults often celebrate Halloween with costume parties, staying home to give out candy, listening to Halloween music, or scaring people.

Visiting a Haunted house or a Dark Attraction are other Halloween traditions. Notwithstanding the name, such events are not necessarily held in houses, nor are there actual ghosts. A variant of this is the haunted trail, where the public encounters supernatural-themed characters or presentations of scenes from horror films while following a trail through a heavily wooded area or field.

Games and other activities
There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. The most common is bobbing for apples, in which fresh apples float in a tub or a large basin of water; the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. This is more difficult than it sounds!

The telling of ghost stories and viewing of horror films are common fixtures at Halloween parties. Television specials with a Halloween theme, usually aimed at children, are commonly aired on or before the holiday while new horror films are often released theatrically before the holiday to take advantage of the atmosphere.

Halloween Foods and Drinks
Here are a few foods and a drink that we associate with Halloween:
candy corn
hot apple cider
roasted pumpkin seeds
"fun-sized" or individually wrapped pieces of small candy, typically in Halloween colors of orange, and brown/black.

Halloween can be a lot of fun. We recommend you participate if you can visit the United States or Canada at this time of year. Almost every American city has a large public street party as part of this holiday celebration.

This page is based on a page from Wikipedia entitled "Halloween." You can find the page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween. Wikipedia is open source. That means anyone is free to use it and alter it as long as they credit the source. Wikipedia is not copyright, it is leftright. The Halloween related text on this page is also leftright. You are free to use it as you like as long as you credit Aaron Teaches and Wikipedia for our authorship. This means that if you want to use this, you must include a statement crediting us and provide links to Aaron Teaches and Wikipedia.