Halloween

Halloween is a festival that is annually celebrated on the night of October 31 by people in most part of North America and in some part of Western Europe, such as the US, the UK, Canada, Ireland, Puerto Rico, and Peru. It is believed that on Halloween spirits of the dead emerge into the human world. Celebrating this occasion, people like to disguise as vampires, ghosts, witches and devils. It is also very common for children to dress in ghostly costumes playing “trick-or-treating”; they go and knock on doors from house to house in their neighborhood and say “Trick or treat!” in order to ask for candy and other treats. Besides, there are also activities like going into haunted houses, watching bloodcurdling films, telling and listening to ghost stories, and playing traditional games such as “bobbing for apples”. Moreover, as decorations to add spookiness to fit the atmosphere of Halloween, people often display icons like the carved pumpkin heads—which might result from the Irish legend of Jack-O’-Lantern—in front of their houses. Apart from the pumpkin faces, characters of ghosts, witches, werewolves, crows, bats, owls, vultures, black cats, and spiders are, too, used to represent this tradition. Further, the traditional colors that symbolize Halloween are black and orange, but for contemporary Halloween, purple, green and red are also important and well-known. These colors denote different ideas; for example, black signifies death while green signifies goblins and monsters.


It sounds like quite a spooky and frightening event; however, at the same time, Holloween is definitely a very fun celebration to practice.

References:

Encarta Encyclopedia. MSN Live Search. 26 Mar. 2007, <http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/ refpages/search.aspx?=halloween&amp;ENCMauth=HC1iy8ApQKl3f2wFbGuXzPR7N%2fGclEp%2f%2bH%2fedwbpEH28bNV3K7JlMyoI%2bYpmsnE20U3SKCvHUYU%3d>

Wikipedia. Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 24 Mar. 2007, <http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween>

Wikipedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 20 Mar. 2007, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween>

Wilstar. Wilstar. 23 Mar. 2007, <http://wilstar.com/holidays/hallown.htm>