Halloween

Halloween falls every October 31. Halloween has roots in an ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain. Samhain is a celebration and the end of harvest season marking the Celtic New Year. The ancient Celts believed that on October 31 the boundary between the living and dead dissolved and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing illness or damaging crops. On the day of Halloween the ancient Celts would place a skeleton on their windowsill to represent the dead. Since the head is the most important part of the body, the head of any vegetable such as a pumpkin can be used to frighten off any superstitions. Today’s Halloween is marked by children and adults alike wearing costumes which are either scary like ghosts or mummies, or dressing up like another person like George W. Bush. Children then go house to house ringing the doorbell saying, “Trick-or-Treat,” meaning if don’t give me candy I will play a trick on you. For Halloween the traditional foods are candied apples and roasted pumpkin seeds. There are many great movies about Halloween such as ‘Halloween’ and ‘Donnie Darko.’ The colors associate with Halloween are orange and black. On Halloween night unmarried women sit in a darkened room and look into a mirror. If a man’s face appears it is the face of her future husband, but if a skull appears the woman is destined to die before marriage.