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What is Halloween?  
JUST THE FACTS 

Tags: Halloween, history, facts, info, quick, simple, list

A quick description of Halloween:

	Halloween, or Hallowe'en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31.
	Traditional activities include trick-or-treating, Halloween festivals, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses" and viewing horror films.
	Halloween originated from the Pagan festival Samhain, celebrated among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain.
	Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century.
	Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century.
	Halloween is now celebrated in several parts of the western world, most commonly in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom.
	The term Halloween (and its alternative rendering Hallowe'en) is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the eve of "All Hallows' Day", also which is now known as All Saints' Day.
	Although All Saints' Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day.
	The Ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops.
	Halloween festivals would frequently involve bonfires, where the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the Oct. 31st festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them.
	The carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols.
	This is an Irish tradition of carving a lantern which goes back centuries. These lanterns are usually carved from a turnip or swede (or more uncommonly a mangelwurzel). The carving of pumpkins was first associated with Halloween in North America, where the pumpkin was available, and much larger and easier to carve. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their home's doorstep after dark.
	The jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard drinking old farmer who tricked the devil into climbing a tree, and trapped him by carving a cross into the trunk of the tree. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack which dooms him to forever wander the earth at night. For centuries, the bedtime parable was told by Irish parents to their children.
	The main event for children of modern Halloween in the United States and Canada is trick-or-treating, in which children disguise themselves in costumes and go door-to-door in their neighborhoods, ringing each doorbell and yelling "trick or treat!" to solicit the usual gift of candies.

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