Halloween Celebration 2016

The celebration of Halloween originates fromCeltic Festival Samhain (Samhain). Living in the territory of modern Britain, the Celts divided the year into two parts - light and dark, summer and winter. At the end of October, the dark season began, according to tradition, the full moon was considered the time of its beginning. This date fell out for a month samonyos, with the time the name of the month was transformed, giving the name of the holiday of the new year - Samain.

Celts believed that at this time the door was openedinto the afterlife, and the shadows of the dead people return to earth. To protect themselves from them and to propitiate the spirits, the Celts burned bonfires, offered sacrifices and put on themselves suits of animal skins, wanting to scare off the ghosts. Samhain lasted more than one day and was very important for the Celts.

With the adoption of Christianity, the Catholic Churchsought to replace pagan holidays with church. In the IX century, November 1 was approved as the All Saints Day by Pope Gregory III. On this day, glorified martyrs and saints. Actually, the name has changed, but the essence of the holiday has not changed. By the way, the name Halloween is a distorted All Hallows Even, which is exactly the "All Saints Day".

In America, where did Halloween begin its marchon the planet, becoming one of the most famous holidays, it was brought by Irish immigrants. It was there that the celebration of Halloween "overgrew" all the known attributes like suits of evil spirits, pumpkins and crocheting sweets. Now he does not resemble neither the pagan Samhain, nor the Christian eve of All Saints Day.

By the way, enthusiasts involved in the revivalancient Celtic traditions, believe that it is necessary to share the celebration of Halloween and Samain, in fact, despite the fact that Halloween originated from the ancient Celtic festival, the apple fell from the apple tree quite far away, and now these holidays have little in common.

The celebration of Halloween is not complete withouttraditional attributes that have lost their superstitious importance and serve to create a frighteningly-fun atmosphere of the holiday, along the way helping their producers to make good money. By the way, believe that one of the reasons for the popularity of Halloween in the world is associated with the desire of manufacturers to "vparit" as much as possible goods and make a profit.

When we hear the word "Halloween", we immediatelyremember the hollowed pumpkins with carved on them terrible faces. Such a pumpkin is called jack-o'-lantern - "Jack's lantern" or "Jack's lamp". The Irish legend says that old Jack, an Irish farmer (by some versions - a blacksmith), was a drunkard, no one saw the light, and moreover he did not miss the opportunity to play cards-for money, of course. Once he sold the soul to the devil for a mug of ale, but he managed to hold it twice. When Jack did die, he could not enter paradise because of his addiction to alcohol and gambling, but he did not take it to hell either, saying that he went where he came from. Jack had a pumpkin with him, he made a lantern with a charcoal inside of it, and so it still wanders around the world. Therefore, the celebration of Halloween is not complete without pumpkin lanterns.

And what a celebration of Halloween without masqueradecostumes? Fortunately, the assortment of evil is so great that you do not have to think long over the costume. Traditional costumes of witches, vampires, skeletons, wizards, werewolves and bats in recent years are co-existent with costumes of horror heroes and even heroes of books about Harry Potter. Dressed in costumes, the children bypass the surrounding houses and with the phrase "Trick or Treat!" ("prank or treat" - the Halloween version of the "purse or life") is begging for adult sweets. And the youth rolls up noisy costumed parties with contests and entertainments.

One of the most ancient competitions is the apple bobbin. The task of the competitors is to take apples from a vessel full of water. The contours with apples on Halloween are a tribute to the Romans. When they conquered Britain, Samhain coincided with festivities in honor of the goddess of fertility Pomona, the symbol of which was considered an apple. These two holidays mingled in the minds of people, and now the celebration of Halloween is not without contests using apples. And Halloween is also used to guess - the mysterious dark atmosphere corresponds.

Traditional Halloween colors are consideredpurple and bright orange. Of course, it does not do without black, bright red, white flowers and their combinations. A good addition to the costume will be an unusual make-up or bright make-up and a fancy witch hairdo. Although all this, of course, depends on the costume - it is strange to meet a mummy with bright red lipstick lips or lush hair.

The celebration of Halloween in our latitudes becomesmore and more popular. Perhaps he does not have such deep roots here as in the West, but if there is an additional reason to have fun and remember childhood, dressed up in a fancy dress - then why not? In addition, the celebration of Halloween can be revived by the usual scarecrows, which we used to tell in the pioneer camp, with a head covered with a blanket.

Have fun with Halloween!