Halloween A pagan holiday that used to celebrate the dead, now a night where children can dress up as their favorite characters and ask for some candy. Known by many names at its beginning, Halloween has been a celebration that truly has left its mark. Dating back 2,000 years, Halloween has had truly one of the richest histories. What makes it most peculiar is that its many stories wrapped up into one single story. But; What is Halloween and how did turn out the holiday it is today? Going back 2,000 years to what it’s now Ireland, the Celts celebrated their new year. An ancient tradition known as “The festival of Samhain”. It marked the end of summer and the harvest. Although it also meant the beginning of a dark and cold winter which was …show more content…
Due to the strict religious beliefs of early colonial Americans, it was extremely limited. As many cultures began to mix, America's own version of Halloween began to emerge. By the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland’s potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. It was from this sudden immigration that came to the story of the jack o lantern. The story basically told is that in 10th century Ireland there was a mischievous man named jack. Once in the middle of his schemes, he was encountered by the devil. In the middle of this confrontation, he tricked the devil into climbing a tree. After that, he drew a cross on the tree and that meant the devil couldn’t get down. So he made a deal with the devil. If he let him go, the devil could not let him go to hell. The devil agrees and jack lets him go. The years passed and Jack eventually dies. He couldn’t enter hell because of his deal, but he couldn’t enter heaven because he was too sinful. So he was cast away to somewhere in between. In this place, he could find a pace for his soul to rest. He was in total darkness. So he asked the devil if he could at least see where he was going so he could find a place to rest. So the devil tossed him …show more content…
This tradition may seem like it's related to a former tradition in which Christians knocked on houses doors for a “soul cake”, a little cake that included raisins. In exchange of such cake, they would pray for the souls of the family’s relatives that were in the purgatory. However, the tradition started in 1939. In the 1920’s, Halloween was somewhat different. Kids dressed up but didn’t go from house to house. Teenagers involvement in Halloween was somewhat destructive and each year it got worse. Eventually, a woman wrote in the paper the day after Halloween that when teenagers were walking up to vandalize her house she offered them homemade caramel apples and balls of popcorn in exchange for leaving her house unharmed. It worked. Once she wrote that on the paper, other adults started doing it. Eventually came the phrase “Trick or Treat” which implied the threat that if you didn’t give them a treat you would get your house vandalized. That’s when Halloween started becoming the holiday we know
Late autumn has arrived and with it comes the dark magic of Halloween--and, of course, the
Even though the Day of the Dead and Halloween are both offshoots of all Saints' and all Souls' Days, their tone couldn't be more diverse. Halloween's images of skeletons and spirits emphasize on the frightening, gruesome, and ghoulish parts of the celebration. Society jolts, if delightfully, at the alleged terrifying spirits intimidating the living realm. On Day of the Dead, the focus isn't on personal menacing spooks, it's on celebrating with one's family alive and dead and recalling those who are no longer alive. It's on seeing death as another phase succeeding existence, rather being confronted with
“One of the first signs of Christmas was the arrival of the Christmas card in the post. John Calcott Horsley designed the first Christmas card in 1846 for Sir Henry Cole, Chairman of the Society of the Arts. Only 1000 cards were printed that first year and were expensive, but the pattern for the future was formed.” Encyclopedia. Then in 1870, postage was reduced. Thus began the real spread of the Christmas card. By the early 1870s, the custom had reached the United States. Christmas decorations sometimes appeared well before the holiday, also, but many still held to the old superstition that it was bad luck to put up a evergreen (Christmas Tree) before Christmas Eve. ”The most favored plants were all 'magical' because of the mid-winter berries they produced--mistletoe, holly and ivy. The red berry of the holly was believed to protect one against witchcraft.” Encyclopedia. The sprig had to be carried into the house by a male, as the berry is on the 'male' holly plant. One use for holly sprigs was to decorate the Christmas pudding. The 'female' ivy symbolized immortality. “Mistletoe, because of its pagan origins, was not allowed in any church. Kissing under the mistletoe was English custom and only as many berries as were on the mistletoe, could there be kisses. For after every kiss, a berry had to be removed from the sprig.” English Customs.
Have you ever felt stuck? Wherever you are, it’s the absolute last place you want to be. In the book Into the Wild, Chris McCandless feels stuck just like the average everyday person may feel. Chris finds his escape plan to the situation and feels he will free himself by going off to the wild. I agree with the author that Chris McCandless wasn’t a crazy person, a sociopath, or an outcast because he got along with many people very well, but he did seem somewhat incompetent, even though he survived for quite some time.
Of all religious holidays that have been adopted by secularists, one of the most popular would be Christmas, originally meant to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. With the exact date of Jesus' birth unknown during ancient times, Christmas was initially assigned to January 6th, but was changed to December 25th under the influence of the winter solstice (Nothaft 903). Peculiarly however, is the universal celebration of Christmas al...
Halloween is believed to have been developed over two thousand years ago, before even the birth of Jesus. It originated from the Celtic people native to Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, and
Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America in the 1840s and it soon became an integral part of our fall festivities.
Imagine having the worst potential Halloween nightmares come to life for a night. Everything from the “Boogeyman” to innocent random people being killed by chainsaws and other disturbing ways. The film Halloween does all that and then some. The movie begins with an innocent looking six year old boy named Michael Myers dresses up in a clown costume and stabs his older sister Judith to death. After that incident Michael ends up going to jail with a plan of being put away for a long time. Then on October 30, 1978 about fifteen years after Michael was sent to jail he escapes. Michael escaping proves to be a major event as most would guess. However, the underlying note in all of this is that the following day is Halloween. Unfortunately,
Mardi Gras, literally “Fat Tuesday,” has grown in popularity in recent years as a raucous’ sometimes hedonistic event. Buts its roots lie in the Christian calendar, as the “last hurrah” before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. That is why the enormous ends abruptly at midnight on Tuesday. There are well-known season-long Carnival celebrations in Europe and Latin America, including Nice, France; Cologne, Germany; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The best known celebration in the United States is in New Orleans and the French-Catholic communities of the Gulf Coast. Another popular site for the celebration of Mardi Gras is Galveston, Texas. Mardi Gras has become a major influence to the people and the economy of Galveston. With its great history and deep economic impact Mardi Gras is beneficial to both the community and visitors to the Island. The first celebration took place in 1867, when a dramatic entertainment and masked ball took place in the old Turner Hall. The dramatic entertainment was a scene from “‘King Henry IV,’ featuring Alvan Reed (a justice of the peace weighing in at 350 pounds!) as Falstaff” (Mardi Gras!). The first time Mardi Gras was celebrated to any great extent was in 1871, when there were two night parades by separate organizations, one known as the Knights of Momus and the other as the Knights of Myth, both of which devised masked ball, exquisite costumes. In the years that followed, the parades and balls grew more elaborate and attracting attention throughout the state. After the hurricane of 1900 the events were discontinued for several years.
Holidays like Halloween and Christmas are celebrated differently here in the U.S. In Mexico, Day of the Dead is celebrated and not Halloween. Grande describes a typical Day of the Dead celebration, “We would have been decorating our altar with candles and marigolds and plates of food for our dead relatives to enjoy” (177), in addition, people celebrate by visiting the grades of the deceased. Christmas in Mexico, the presents are exchanged on the Day of the Three Wise Men, January 6. She recounts, “kids looked forward to, when our bellies would be stuffed like piñata with peanuts, jicamas, candy, oranges, and sugarcane” (135), and churches reenact the journey of Mary and Joseph to
Irish traditions may be more well-known than Scottish, but here are a few of both. Some current American traditions can be traced back to old Irish traditions, of which are still currently practiced in Ireland: “Girl’s Night Out”, “Fat Tuesday”, “Halloween”, spring cleaning, and even “tying the knot”. Girl’s night out occurs in Ireland each year on the eve of January 6th and is called “Little Women’s Christmas”. This is considered the one day off by women in Ireland, from cooking, cleaning, and any household chore. Fat Tuesday, known as Shrove Tuesday in Ireland, occurs on February 24th. On the eve of Lent, pancakes are made thick and sprinkled with lemon juice and sugar, then rolled and eaten as a sweet. Many pancakes are eaten, because of the fasting time period of Lent. Also, unmarried daughters were tested on their pancake making skills, and how well the first pancake made was an indication of her romantic chances for the upcoming year. Most people are aware that Halloween is associated with ‘All Hallows Eve’ evolving from the Catholic Church. But, prior to the Catholic Church acknowledging this holiday, Celtic tradition celebrated the eve by trying to scare away evil spirits through
Halloween was not supposed to be like that, it was supposed to be more like when I was a kid. Houses would be decorated, jack-o-lanterns would be sitting near doors, and
In conclusion, Halloween is celebrated worldwide, but some countries celebrate it differently. Most celebrate by honoring the dead in some way. Some celebrate like the U.S. But we all celebrate the holiday in some
Americans celebrate Halloween as a sort of party in our communities. We hold parties and kids go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. For
“Trickier treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat,” yells the typical child on the night of October 31st, Halloween. Halloween is now a day where children dress up in costumes, roaming around neighbors, and asking strangers for candy. As of today Halloween is an over commercialized campaign, set to get people to buy into what America views as Halloween today. Social and cultural expressions have changed over the years from traditional life and death celebrations to a modernized era of Halloween. By looking at the history behind Halloween through Celtic, Mexican, and witch history, one can see how Halloween is now a way for the media to help producers make money off of the consumer society.