What Exactly Is Halloween?

This Halloween is the first one for our 8 month old Granddaughter, Sophie.  Of course, she doesn't understand this holiday yet, but she will be dressed up on Sunday!! 

She received her "First Halloween Card" and I bought her a pumpkin that is just her size:

As you can see, Sophie was VERY happy with her gifts!  (so was her Mom Lisa-pictured)

We started talking about Halloween and I couldn't remember exactly when it started.  I researched it and found out that Halloween goes back about 2,000 years.  The Celts celebrated the beginning of winter on the evening of October 31st. November 1st was the first day of their new year and it also marked the first day of winter. They believed that death was strongly linked to the long and bitter winter.

In the 800's, the Christians changed Halloween. November 1st became known as All Saints Day or All-Hallows. They altered the holiday into a church related celebration, honoring deceased saints. The Christians honored the dead on this day too. The evening of October 31st soon became known as All-Hallows Eve and was eventually changed to Halloween. 

The tradition of trick-or-treating and costumes are not really tied to the history of Halloween. Even though door to door trick-or-treating began in America, it was most likely taken from festival parades in Europe. During these parades poor citizens would beg for food.

So, for those of you who didn't remember that Halloween is actually 2,000 years old, I hope this helped!

It was interesting  refreshing our memory about Halloween and most of all, we made Sophie really happy!