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happy Halloween

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Happy halloween

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May the only good spirits you will chance to meet,
Be the spirits of love and the friends sweet.
Be happy tonight, be happy every day!
Halloween spirits will guard your way!

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HALLOWEN
PUMKINGS
afraid small lanterns

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Dear O.V.,
I am Nastia.
I think that children like Halloween, because it is a funny and a terrible holiday.
Я вважаю що діти люблять Хелловін,тому що воно веселе і страшне свято.
And kids like to do small lanterns from pumpkin.
And what do you think ?
А ви  як вважаєте?
Love,
Nastia Yesipova.

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Spiders scare peopl on Hallowen.
Is not it true?
Павуки лякають на Хелловін.
Чи не правда?

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Happy Halloween
It is fun and crazy holiday

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This article was updated October 19, 2018.

Today's mix of parties, pranks, and profit is a far cry from Halloween's ancient origins. Over the centuries the celebration has seen a lot of changes, and we've summed them up here for you.

Halloween's origins date back more than 2,000 years. On what we consider November 1, Europe's Celtic peoples celebrated their New Year's Day, called Samhain (SAH-win).

On Samhain eve-what we know as Halloween-spirits were thought to walk the Earth as they traveled to the afterlife. Fairies, demons, and other creatures were also said to be abroad. (See pictures of crypts and catacombs.)

In addition to sacrificing animals to the gods and gathering around bonfires, Celts often wore costumes-probably animal skins-to confuse spirits, perhaps to avoid being possessed, according to the American Folklife Center at the U.S. Library of Congress.

By wearing masks or blackening their faces, Celts are also thought to have impersonated dead ancestors.

Young men may have dressed as women and vice versa, marking a temporary breakdown of normal social divisions.

In an early form of trick-or-treating, Celts costumed as spirits are believed to have gone from house to house engaging in silly acts in exchange for food and drink-a practice inspired perhaps by an earlier custom of leaving food and drink outdoors as offerings to supernatural beings.

Christian Influence on Halloween

Samhain was later transformed as Christian leaders co-opted pagan holidays. In the seventh century Pope Boniface IV decreed November 1 All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day.

The night before Samhain continued to be observed with bonfires, costumes, and parades, though under a new name: All Hallows' Eve-later "Halloween."

Halloween Arrives in America

European immigrants brought Halloween to the United States, and the celebration really gathered steam in the 1800s, when Irish-American immigration exploded.

Anoka, Minnesota, may be home to the United States' oldest official Halloween celebration. Beginning in 1920, the city began staging a parade and bonfire.

Anoka historians say townsfolk wanted to curb Halloween pranks that loosed cows on Main Street and upended outhouses.

More than a third of Americans say they believe in ghosts, according to an AP-Ipsos poll conducted before Halloween 2007. Twenty-three percent claimed to have seen a ghost or sensed one's presence.

About one in five people believe that spells or witchcraft are real, according to the poll.

Halloween Urban Legends

Some Halloween spook stories just won't die-even if there's little substance behind the scare.

For example, satanic cults-far more common in fiction than in fact-have been said to sacrifice black cats on Halloween.

But experts say that there is little evidence for such fears, and that the few isolated incidents involving abused black cats were the work of disturbed-often adolescent-loners.

Candy tainted by poisons, needles, or razor blades is another Halloween hobgoblin.

But sociologist Joel Best said in 2010 that dangerous-candy rumors might be manifestations of fears and anxieties about the future. In a world where so many threats-terrorism, crashing stock markets-seem uncontrollable, it may be comforting for parents to focus on preventable calamities, such as a child biting into a spiked apple, said Best, of the University of Delaware.

Best conducted a study of alleged tainted Halloween candy incidents.

"I have been unable to find a substantiated report of a child being killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating," he wrote.

This article was originally published in October 2013.

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Halloween: costumes, history, myths, and more

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This article was updated October 19, 2018. Today's mix of parties, pranks, and profit is a far cry from Halloween's ancient origins. Over the centuries the celebration has seen a lot of changes, and we've summed them up here for you. Halloween's origins date back more than 2,000 years.

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What do you know about Halloween? Test yourself

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What do you know about Halloween? Test yourself

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The origins of Halloween

If you think of Halloween, you probably think of scary carved pumpkins, all kinds of fancy dress and children asking for sweets. And if you think of a country that celebrates Halloween, you probably think of the United States first. Americans and Canadians have adopted Halloween in a big way, but Halloween traditions actually come from 16th-century Ireland, Scotland and England.

The tradition of Halloween on 31 October comes from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. Samhain was the Celtic New Year and they celebrated it on 1 November because that was the end of summer and harvest time (life) and the beginning of winter (death). It was also the time for ghosts to return to earth for a day. People lit a big fire, wore special clothes made of animal skin and hoped to be safe from the ghosts and the winter. In AD 609, the Catholic Church put the Christian celebration of All Saints Day on 1 November. In AD 1000, the church added All Souls Day on 2 November, and All Hallows Eve - or Halloween - moved to the night of the 31st.

Pumpkins

The Celts carved faces into vegetables like turnips, potatoes and squash (a pumpkin is a kind of squash) to scare the ghosts and other spirits and make them go away. It was sometimes called a jack-o'-lantern because of an Irish story about a man, Jack. He played a trick on the devil and then had to walk the earth for all time as a punishment. Irish people who came to live in the United States in the 1800s found pumpkins much easier to carve, and the tradition became the one we see today.

Fancy dress

The Celts were afraid of the ghosts that came on Samhain. If they went outside after dark, they covered their faces with masks. They hoped any ghosts they met would think they were ghosts too and would leave them alone. In early America, the Native Americans and the first Europeans celebrated the end of the harvest, but not Halloween. When Irish people arrived, the harvest festival started to look more like Halloween and it became popular across the country. In the late 19th century, people tried to make Halloween less about ghosts and religion and more about celebrating the season with a party for neighbours and family. That's why Americans today wear all kinds of Halloween costumes and not just scary things like witches and ghosts like in other countries.

Trick or treat

This is another tradition that began in Europe, this time in England. When the church introduced All Souls Day, rich people gave poor people 'soul cakes', a small cake made with spices and raisins. It replaced the Celtic tradition of leaving food outside houses for the ghosts. 'Going a-souling' was popular in England for hundreds of years until about the 1930s. The Americans kept the tradition, but today children knock on people's doors and ask for sweets. Going trick or treating is so popular that a quarter of the sweets for the year in the United States are sold for this one day.

The rest of the world

Halloween has become the United States' second-biggest commercial festival after Christmas. Halloween is also celebrated in other countries, but it's not as big as in the United States, even in the countries where the traditions began. Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead from 31 October to 2 November and some of its traditions, like giving gifts of sugar skulls, are starting to mix with Halloween. In this way, the celebration of Halloween continues to change as new traditions join the oldest of the Celtic ones.

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If you think of Halloween, you probably think of scary carved pumpkins, all kinds of fancy dress and children asking for sweets. And if you think of a country that celebrates Halloween, you probably think of the United States first.

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happy halloween

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Dear  Oksana . V  Would  you  like  a  skary  pumking       Happy Halloween

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I love Halloween! But this holiday is not celebrated in our school. Happy Halloween!!!!!

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Children dress up creepy costumes.
Діти одягають моторошні костюми.

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HALLOWEEN is a
 terrible and funny holiday!!!

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Halloween is happy holiday!!!!!!!!!

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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it`s happy!!!))and scary but still possible to eat sweets