The walking English: Culture Invasion

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Watch the video to check the real story of Halloween!!

Bet You Didn't Know: Halloween | History (video link)

How Halloween Began

Nearly 2,000 years ago, an ancient people called the Celts lived in Ireland. Every year around the time of Halloween, the Celts held a fire festival called Samhain (pronounced 'sah-win'), which means 'summer's end.' They were celebrating the end of the harvest.During the time of Samhain, the ancient pagans took stock of supplies and prepared for winter.

Legend has it that Samhain was the time of year when spirits were most likely to pass into our realm and visit the living. The spirits of loved ones were invited to come home, and people prepared food for both the living and the dead. People wore masks and lit bonfires to ward off evil spirits.

As Christianity swept through Europe, the Celtic traditions spread across Europe but changed slightly to adopt to Christian principles. Rather than celebrating Samhain, Europeans celebrated All Saints' Day, otherwise known as All Hallows' Day, on November 1. But the celebrations actually began the day before on October 31, the holiday when people dressed in masks known as All Hallows' Eve.

The ancient Celts from Britain and Ireland observed the start of the new year on November 1, All Souls Day, marking the end of summer and harvest time. People came to believe that on October 31, the worlds of the living and dead overlapped before the start of the new year. October 31 became All Hallows Eve, when ghosts of the dead could return to destroy the harvest that was stored for winter. People set bonfires on hilltops to ward off the evil spirits before the start of the winter season. The word Halloween is a shortening of All Hallows’ Evening also known as Hallowe’en or All Hallows’ Eve.

Trick-or-Treating

Trick-or-treating may have also become a part of Halloween history thanks to Celtic tradition. Poor children in Britain and Ireland went door-to-door on All Hallows Eve and received food in exchange for the promise of praying for the giver’s dead relatives on All Saints Day. This practice was known as “going-a-souling.” While that may be the start of it, that tradition didn’t make its way to America. Here, trick-or-treating may have started with children trading songs for treats in the 1910s, according to old newspaper texts. The tradition didn’t really take off until after World War II, when many children’s magazines featured it and the idea entered popular culture.

Jack-o’-Lanterns

This tradition began with people believing that carving scary faces onto turnips would frighten away evil spirits. The tradition turned to pumpkins in America because pumpkins were more plentiful—and much easier to carve.

There are many legends surrounding the Jack-o’-Lantern (sometimes also spelled Jack O’Lantern) and where the name comes from. In Irish folklore, a lazy yet shrewd farmer named Jack uses a cross to trap the Devil. One story says that Jack tricked the Devil into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that the Devil couldn’t get down.

Despite the colorful legends, the term Jack-o’-Lantern originally meant a night watchman, or man with a lantern, with the earliest known use found in the mid-17th century.

What to do on Halloween?

1. Decorate your house like an haunted house, carve pumpkins and make Jack-O'-Lantern

2. Plan an Halloween Party

3. Ask your guests to wear costumes and have a contest "Which is the scariest costume of 2019?"

4. Bob for apples.

Bobbing for apples is a beloved Halloween tradition, and a never-ending source of entertainment. Fill a large bucket or wash tub with water, dump in a few apples, and challenge your guests to try to pluck them out using only their mouths. Win or lose, you can bet that there will be no shortage of laughs.

5. Screen a selection of scary movies.

Turn your home into a theater of terror with a private showing of some hair-raising fright flicks. Stick with timeless classics like Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, or House on Haunted Hill, or scare the living daylights out of your guests with chilling new offerings like IT, Get Out, The Nun, or the Pet Sematary remake. Only show movies that are appropriate for the average age of your guests. The last thing you want to do is give some poor child nightmares! If you're looking for some kid-friendly titles, try Beetlejuice, The Adams Family, Hocus Pocus, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Frankenweenie, or Hotel Transylvania.