Trick or Treat!
Smell my feet!
Give me something good to eat!
Does that sound familiar? It should, especially around this time of year. When most people think of Halloween, they think candy, parties, pumpkin carving, and all other sorts of festivities like that.
What they don’t know is how Halloween was born.
It all kicked off with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. During it, people would light bonfires, dress up in costumes and dance around to ward off ghosts. Then, in the eighth century, Pope Gregory III declared that November 1 was the day to honor all saints, naming it All Saints Day.
At some point in time, All Saints Day started to insert the traditions of Samhain into their holiday. The eve before All Saints Day, was known as All Hallows Eve, and now, we call it Halloween.
To the Celts, who were located in what we now know as Ireland, France, and the UK, November 1 signified the beginning of a dark, cold winter, death often in the foreseeable future. Not only that, but it marked the beginning of a new year, and the end of summer and harvest.
They believed that the night before the new year was a time where spirits could cross the bounds between the dead and the living, believing that the ghosts of those who passed returned to visit. While believing in these “spirits”, they believed that they brought troubles such as damages to crops.
On a more positive note, they thought that it made it easier for Celtic Priests, also known as Druids, to predict the future. These were the very predictions that eased the troubled minds of the Celts during harsh winters.
As a final “hoorah,” the Celts would celebrate by dancing around large bonfires, dressed in animal hides or heads. They’d throw in crops and animals in hopes that their sacrifices would be approved by Celtic gods.
From then, Halloween gradually became what it is known for now; dressing up in costumes, scary or not, and trick or treating.
When it came to trick or treating, Americans started to borrow European traditions, going around and asking for food or money. This eventually led to nowadays trick or treating tradition.
According to History.com, Americans spend over 11 billion dollars annually on Halloween.
Now, rather than dancing around a bonfire hoping we don’t die during a harsh winter, people have found numerous ways to enjoy Halloween and the fall season prior.
“We watch scary movies,” Landstown junior Anna Vlcek says.
In Virginia Beach, there are a lot of things you can go out and do, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things you can stay home and enjoy, too. If you’re the type of person that likes to get out of the house, spooky attractions are for you.
Some of the main attractions that come to mind are: Haunted Hunt Club Farm’s, where kids can jump around in bounce houses and teenagers/adults can partake in the haunted hayride or scary cornmazes, Busch Garden’s Howl-O-Scream where they have five haunted houses, six different scare zones and live shows, and lastly Nightmare Mansion, where you walk through narrow, pitch black, horrific hallways and get shocked to your core with fear.
However, scary isn’t everyone’s thing. Some people prefer more relaxed and cutesy activities like going for a walk and seeing how the leaves have changed colors, getting “fall” drinks at Starbucks, or pumpkin picking. Sometimes it can be as simple as getting cozy on the couch and watching a movie.
I’m sure you’ve seen the pumpkins on peoples porches, carved or not, anyone would agree that it adds to the fall ambiance. What a lot of people don’t know is that pumpkin seeds make a tasty snack. Roasting them in the oven and then seasoning them does wonders, and it isn’t nearly as wasteful as just tossing the guts.
When people think of Halloween most minds go straight to costumes: “what am I going to be this year?”
“I was the puppet from Five Nights at Freddy’s,” senior Kaylee Seminario explains. “This was like fifth grade, but I’m doing it again this year!”
Costumes have evolved over the years. Obviously, since coming from wearing animal hides as costumes to manufactured ones. When it comes to dressing up and trick or treating, senior Zechariah Bristol feels, “there should be no age limit because you should just go out there to have fun.”
It could be as simple as a candy apple, a cozy blanket, or a scary movie to get you in the Halloween spirit. It could be going to a haunted house, pumpkin picking, finding a costume, all to just getting a simple fall drink, doesn’t that make you excited for next Halloween to roll around?
