Halloween is a tradition that started around 2000 years ago with the Celtic people who lived in an area that is now known as Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France.

These ancient Celts would hold a yearly festival called a Samhain to celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of the cold and dark winter months, a time of year they associated with human death. 

During this annual autumn festival, the Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes made of animal heads and skins in the hopes of warding off ghosts and spirits, 

which they believed returned to earth to damage their crops, wreak havoc amongst the living and generally be a pain in the rear. 

Sometime around 43 A.D., the ever-expanding Roman Empire had conquered much of this Celtic territory. 

During the 400 years more of less of their rule, a few festivals of Roman origin were eventually combined with the traditional Samhain celebration. 

In 1000 A.D., a Pope declared November 1 the official day to honor the dead. 

All Souls Day as it was known, is now believed to be the churches attempt to replace the Celtic festival with a church-sanctioned holiday.

That said, All Souls’ Day was celebrated pretty much like the ancient holiday was, with big bonfires, parades and folks dressed up in all sorts of costumes like saints, angels and oh yeah devils. 

All Souls Day was also known as All-hallows. The night before, was known as All-Hallows Eve, which as you probably have guessed by now became Halloween.

In the U.S during the late 1800s, there was a move to make Halloween into a holiday that focused more on community and neighborly get-togethers than on ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. 

Parents were encouraged by community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Dang.

Which brings us to now where Halloween is a month-long celebration of pumpkin patches, corn mazes, scream parks, scary movies, costume parties and more all culminating in a night of parentally supervised trick-or-treating.

The Show Notes

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