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The history of halloween essay
The history of halloween essay
An essay about halloween
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What Does Halloween Celebrate?
Halloween is an international holiday that is celebrated annually on the 31st of October. Halloween is renowned for toeing the fine line between the autumn and the winter and for providing millions around the world with a day just as unique as they are.
Halloween’s trademark is an assortment of traditions that date back more than 2,000 years ago. Halloween is a holiday that is marked by change, yet sticks to the fundamentals of what the holiday is really about.
What Does Halloween Celebrate?
• The Dead: Halloween has evolved over the years to include a healthy amount of respect for the dead. Many religions and cultures around the world use Halloween as a day to remember their deceased, and to leave offerings of food and wine for the deceased. Why do they do
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Halloween is a holiday that has held on to many of its original traditions while incorporating new traditions. This fluidity allows Halloween to reach a broader culture and keeps some timeless traditions from slipping away with time. Traditions are important because they help us to understand who we are as a culture and helps us understand our place in the grand scheme of things.
• Uniqueness: One of the most celebrated traits of Halloween is uniqueness. Halloween provides a day where if you can dream it, you can be it. This type of uniqueness is important for individuals that don’t feel like they fit in. Halloween provides even the most strangest amongst us to revel in their uniqueness without risking being ridiculed or made fun of.
• Childhood: Halloween is a special holiday that celebrates everything fun about being a child. We allow children to dress up as princesses or zombies, depending on their individual interests. We allow them to participate in games and allow them entirely too much candy because we want them to have the experience that they will remember for the rest of their
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
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
The poem “Halloween” does such a great job at conveying that image of trick or treating. This poem takes into account the nostalgic feeling one gets when looking back at past memories such as this. Going door to door dressed in your favorite outfit. The use of imagery is so strong it is easy to be right there almost as if it were yesterday. The poet Mac Hammond writes “Kids come, beckoned by / Fingers of shadows on leaf-strewn lawns / To trick or treat” (15-17). This goes on to describe the pull and excitement a child gets when arriving at a house. The shadows of the owners Halloween decorations are cast onto the fall lawn, calling children to the front door. Not only does this give the reader an image of the fall weather, but of the Halloween decorations on someone’s house. Children tend to be drawn towards homes with decorations because it feels more welcoming. Therefore, this is where the beckoning feeling comes from. Not only does Hammond do a wonderful job by using imagery, but also the sound personified in this poem is
The next thing I would like to talk about is Halloween, I love Halloween, it’s my second
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,
Mexicans and Venezuelans celebrate Halloween very differently; to the extent, some Venezuelans do not even celebrate the holiday. Mexicans celebrates Day of the Dead instead of Halloween. During Day of the Dead, Mexicans build altars and fill it with desserts, tamales and candy for their passed loved ones, and decorate and clean their graves. These altars are made specifically as a welcoming to the loved ones who passed away. People are sometimes welcomed to visit other’s families’ altars and take part in any of the goodies or stories involved. Some Pueblos or communities, they gathered food from different altars and enjoy the food at their loved one’s grave. Day of the Dead is much similar to Halloween, but contain much more meaning and spirit. We celebrate this holiday to remember our loved ones; not in a weeping sense, more over into a joyous sense. We only talk about the good and special times we had with that individual. People tell each other’s stories and thoughts of the dead to let them know we still remember their presence. On the other hand, in some communities in Venezuelans celebrate Halloween exactly how Americans do, but...
Late autumn has arrived and with it comes the dark magic of Halloween--and, of course, the
This holiday is an annual event meant to celebrate and commemorate the departed. Day of the Dead is celebrated on first two days of November and is a day in which the dead spirits return to Earth to visit their loved
When Halloween approaches, I feel the air becoming cooler and the nights becoming longer. Clouds over lap the moon creating an eerie look in the sky. Children grow more and more excited to put on their costumes, and they spend one night out of the whole year going door to door getting free candy. As I have grown up over the years, Halloween is celebrated differently for me. I always notice that even though it is celebrated differetly the people haven’t changed and that’s what makes it memorable.
However, their customs for both holidays are not the same. The two holidays share, pretty much, the same mood. On Halloween children and adults both are excited, especially the children because they are getting candy and dressing up as someone or something they admire or like. On Day of the Dead people are happy and excited because they are celebrating the life of their deceased loved ones. Yes, on Day of the Dead people our happy and excited and happy, but they could also be sad because they miss their dead family members or friends. On Halloween Children dress up and go trick-or-treating. Also a couple of days before Halloween, families carve pumpkins to get in the spirit of halloween, and it is also a fun tradition to have with your family. Customs for Day of the Dead are things like visiting graves of your loved ones, and spending time celebrating with your family. Aso on day of the dead people set out a pillow and blanket, so the spirits can rest from their long journey from coming back from the
To conclude, The Day of The Dead and Halloween may seem very similar but are actually very different from each other as you can now tell from the food, how it’s celebrated and how skeletons are
In total, it is a three-day celebration starting on October thirty-first and reaches to November second. Celebrating death and honoring the dead are its focal points. It is believed that during this time, the spirits of those who have died return to their earthly homes, where they are made welcome with gifts, flowers, and food (“Mexico” 218-226). In Mexico, festivals to honor the dead have been celebrated for hundreds of years, beginning in the fifteenth century when the Aztec controlled the region. These early festivals were meant to honor the Aztec god of death and were held during harvest time (“Halloween and Festivals of the Dead” 195-209). The Aztec also honored their dead during the month-long harvest celebration. As a part of these celebrations, many prisoners of war were sacrificed to the Aztec sun and war god, Huitzilopochtli (“Mexico”
Though Halloween has moved away from the pagan beliefs of the dead crossing over, many people remain superstitious of ghosts and forty-two percent of Americans reported believing in them (Handwerk). The changes in how Halloween is represented reflect the changing expectations and values of culture. The Celts, who lived in a world without modern medicine and survival was based on chance, believed in Samhain and magic to explain the world around them. In an era of science and strong religious influence, superstitions are still present, but are not used to explain the world as they once were. Coupled with Halloween’s commercialization and intentional campaigns to engage the youth, this explains why Halloween has largely moved away from the supernatural and more into the materialistic
The Chinese New Year is fifteen days long and each day involves a different custom based off of a different ideology such as cleaning your house will wipe away the bad luck of the preceding year. Halloween although originating in Ireland, was carried to other countries and is now often seen as an equivalent to the popular Day of the Dead Celebration in Mexico. Although, Day of the Dead is about celebrating dead loved ones, the act of dressing up in costumes happens in both celebrations. Halloween follows the ideology that children dress up in costumes and go collect candy from people’s houses whereas day of the dead is centered around the ideology that for one night dead loved ones can be reunited with their families. Easter and the popular Jewish holiday Passover are often seen as the same thing because they fall around the same thing and both celebrate spring. All around the world countries celebrate independence days that are on different days but they all represent relatively the same thing. But, different countries hold different ideologies for their independence days. For
America has many days dating back in history which need to be celebrated. To illustrate, the fourth of July is very important to Americans because it is the the day they have gained their independence and freedom. Celebrating the most memorable day of the country, citizens have made fireworks and barbeque a tradition every year with family and friends. The fourth of November,Thanksgiving, is also commemorated by fellow Americans with a traditional and delicious turkey. Inhabitants of America reminisce on their life and share what they are thankful for. This day holds plenty of joyous feelings. Soaring with high creativity, Halloween is a holiday that allows children (or even adults) to dress up as witches, monsters, or other characters besides