costumefly

Halloween Traditions and Costumes

Written by halloween_junkie

Halloween also called as All Hallow's Eve or All Saint's Eve is holiday celebrated and observed by a number of western countries on the 31st day of October every year. Brought to the North American continent by Irish immigrants and has its roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the All Saint's Day celebrated by Christians. Samhian was a end of harvest season in the Gaelic culture. Halloween derives its name from the All Hallow's Eve, which was a day of pagan traditional religious celebrations and festivities. The Celts believed that on All Hallow's Eve the line between the living and the dead dissolves and the evil ones among the dead (often their own relatives) can breifly come in to the lives of the living and cause bad things like epidemics and damage to the crops. The dead would often return disguised as animal (mostly a black cat). The Celtic people started bonfires and burned animal flesh and bones to try to ward off the dead. They would wear the animal hide and heads and dance around the bonfire. Since the evil spirits only targetted the living, the humans also disguised themselves with costumes and masks to fool the spirits in to believing that they are spirits too.

Jack-o'-Lantern is one of the inseparable symbols of the Halloween. It consists of a vegetable carved as a head which was beleived to ward off the evil spirits. The term comes from the name of an stingy Irishman named Jack who had tricked and trapped a devil soul on an apple tree. After Jack died he was rejected from heaven for his sins and from hell by the devil, forcing jack into the wold of the undead with a hollow turnip and piece of lit coal inside it to show him way through the darkness. People in North America use a pumpkin which is much more readily available and is also larger which makes it easier to carve faces in them. Another symbol that also reminds us of Halloween is a skeleton. Celts displayed skeletons on their windows to represent the dead. Traditionally, people wear costumes of monsters, ghosts, witches, skeletons and anything that is scary or associated with the dead. In recent times, costumes representing movie/tv characters, popular icons, cartoon characters, super heroes have started to become more popluar.  

Trick-or-treating is childrens favorite activity during Halloween. Children dress up in their favorite character and go from house-to-house for treats and sweets. They also say the question/phrase "trick-or-treat?" as a mischeivious threat in order to extract treats from the home owners. Tric-or-treating has also made its way in to the work space and people
sometimes bring their kids to work and the kids then go from office-to-office or cube-to-cube asking for treats. Halloween coincides with the time of apple harvest hence candy apples or taffy apples are a common treat during Halloween. Candy corn is another confection made from sugar and honey which is also popular.

Lately Halloween costume parties are also becoming popular among the younger folks. Young men and women dress up in their favorite costumes and get together on the eve of Halloween. Activities usually include ghost story telling, watching horror TV series episodes, and spooky movies. The venue is typically decorated in Halloween colors and spooky decor like spider webs, skeletons, carved pumpkins, headless bride, etc. Haunted house visiting is another practice that has started in recent times. Some of the haunted houses have a high level of sophisticated effects designed to scare the bravest among us.

So go get dressed as your favorite character this halloween and have fun with your family and friends!