History Of Halloween

  Hey there people! Today is Halloween. Halloween is quite controversial in this family, but now Mom says that the kids can go trick or treating! Since today is a special day, I have decided to look into the History of Halloween for this blog post. My mind is still not made up about it, for now I just believe what my parents believe about it.
    If you go back to the very beginnings of the holiday, you will find that Halloween is most typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samuin (pronounced sow-in) or the festival of the "Summer's End". The Celtic people celebrated Nov. 1 as their new year, the day when Summer was over and winter, the time of cold and of the dead began. They believed that the border between this world and the spirit world became thin on that day and that spirits (both good and bad) came into the world that night. It is believed that they used costumes to ward off the bad spirits.

    However, the word "Halloween" did not come into use until the 1550's, deriving from the term "All Hallows eve." As people came to America from different countries, they brought their varied Halloween traditions with them. However, Halloween wasn't really developed into the holiday it is now until the late 1800's or early 20th Century. Today, Americans spend more than $6 billion annually on Halloween, making it the second largest commercial holiday in the country.
     Now, I'm not saying anything really for or against Halloween. I have a lot of friends who are devout Christians who are really against Halloween but I also have some friends who really like it and say that it's just harmless fun.
     Me; I'm not sure yet but I'm bordering on the harmless fun side. I guess it just doesn't matter to me so much anymore because I'm too old to dress up and go door to door getting free candy.