Halloween/All Hallows Eve

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 Halloween is a festival known around the world, and has many traditions. Some include making jack-o-lanterns, dressing up, and going door to door to get candy; but the history is even more fascinating than the traditions. 

Halloween, or All Hallows Eve is celebrated on October 31st to celebrate the last day of harvest.  To understand Halloween today though, it is better to take a look at what it was before, and how it came to be.

Halloween comes from the Celtic Festival of Samhain. The people of Samhain would often complete similar traditions as we do now. They would light fires, like lighting jack-o-lanterns, and they would also dress up. Both of these things would be done to ward off ghosts. This Celtic Festival is not important to the history of Halloween, but more so explains where most of the traditions come from.

In 837, Pope Gregory IV declared that November 1st would become All Saints Day. Although this news was limited to Rome for a long time, the Catholic people started to spread the news for religious reasons. They were believed to believe that the holiday's spreading would enforce Catholicism around the world, giving them a higher chance of going to Heaven. Soon, the news of the holiday spread to Ireland, then Samhain. All Saints Day would later become another Samhain tradition.

Around the 11th century, All Hallows Eve began, first known to celebrate the last days of harvest before winter came, but also to be the day before All Saints Day. The people of Ireland decided to put the Samhain traditions of the Celtic Festival into the holiday of All Hallows Eve. 

In modern society, All Hallows Eve is more commonly known as Halloween. On Halloween, most of the traditions take place at night. Although some people do things midday, many do them at night.

Halloween is a holiday all about its traditions and the world celebrates it every year. Its history is even more important than what it is today, so let us all take a moment to remember that everything has a history that it worth telling. 

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