What is Halloween Day?

Halloween falls on the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows' Day (also known as All Saints', Hallowmas or Hallowtide) on 1 November and All Souls' Day on 2 November, thus giving the holiday on 31 October the full name of All Hallows' Eve (meaning the evening before All Hallows' Day).

Background Of Halloween Day:

Halloween day celebrated from early ages it around 1745.it celebrated by only Catholics, but this day make his presence in all around the world.

Halloween day  festival comes originates in the  parts of Northern Europe, particularly around the United Kingdom. Many European cultural traditions hold the faith  that the Halloween day is a time when black magic is most potent and devil and saint spirits can make contact with the our world or physical world. In Christian times, it became a celebration of the evening before All Saints’ Day. Immigrants from Scotland and Ireland brought the holiday to the United States.

In the 12th century they had become holy days of obligation across Europe and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for the souls in purgatory. In addition, they dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls. 

And  baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls, and  has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating. Back dates of  the 15th century it was found in parts of England, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Italy.in this day  groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Hallow tide, collecting soul cakes as a means of praying for souls in purgatory.

The commercialization of Halloween started in the 1900s, when postcards and die-cut paper decorations were produced. Halloween costumes started to appear in stores in the 1930s and the custom of 'trick-or-treat' appeared in the 1950s. The types of products available in Halloween style increased with time. Now Halloween is a very profitable holiday for the manufacturers of costumes, yard decorations and candy.

The First Halloween or Samhain:

The celebrations for this holiday has been started in ancient, times as a Celtic ceremony for the dead. The holiday fell upon 31th October, as it still does. It was called Samhain and this was the  mark of the eve of the next season and new year. During this time period, 1^st November  was the beginning of the cold season, which was a time of hardship. For this situation, the season was winter.

The winter ahead promised to be cold, long and harsh. The people would get ready by relocating their livestock closer and preparing them for the cruel season ahead. The cessation of the crop cycle was at this time, with the harvests being stored for the winter. Because of the severity of this season, and the long, dark, cold spell upon the Celts, it became affiliated with death.

The festival of Samhain was that time when  people believed  that the worlds of the living and the dead could become one again, with the spirits. Spirits could return to earth and be mischievous, like causing crop damage.

Halloween day as it is celebrated these days but this is a pale representation of its rich and multicultural history. It is not  a celebration of the Devil or of Hell or of the Damned, but rather it is a blending of the celebrations marking the end of the growing season, a heralding of the coming of the winter months and folk traditions that told of the day when the veil between the living and the dead, ever a transparent, gossamer veil at that, would lift and ghosts and ghouls would walk among the living. From those many traditions, coming to us from the Celts, the Roman rituals and even Catholic tradition, we get the stirrings of what would eventually become Halloween.