2012/10/31

HALLOWEEN

The festival of the dead, most commonly known as Halloween, is celebrated on October 31. It’s a holiday in which most people wear classic Halloween costumes, like witches, ghosts, skeletons, goblings, and other kind of spooky things. In many cultures, traditional rituals are performed to pay tribute to the dead and to please the spirits.
Although it is not as popular as it is in the USA, Halloween has taken an important role in many European cultures in the 1980s. 
People celebrate this festival to give many offerings to the dead and the souls of the deceased, blackening their faces and dressing in white, as to appear like a ghost.
Children like carrying turnip lanterns while featuring scary stories in their spooky costumes. They also perform tricks for treats, travelling from house to house in order to ask for treats such as candy, or even money, with the question “Trick or treat?”
It is said that the lighting of turnip lanterns on gatepost was a traditional English custom carried by people between eleven and midnight just to ensure protection from spirits.
This custom is believed to be related to the Celtic festival of Samhain, celebrated on the Christian holy days of All Saints (November 1) and All Souls (November 2).