What Is Halloween?

Do you know what's going on October the 31st?

Do you have any idea to tell what will you do this month?

HALLOWEEN. Yeah, that's it! Myths, traditions, and parties will happen at the day.

Mostly people who lives in USA celebrate it. It is a tradition that is always celebrated at night :3 I heard there are a lot of things they'd like to do. Children wear costumes and come to their neighborhood and ask for sweets (or sometimes money) by saying "Trick or treat!" which is kind of threat :3  The word "trick" refers to "threat" to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given. People who they asked have to give treats or they would like to decorate their tree with toilet tissues :p Eh, will it still happen?

Some halloween treats for children
Source: Google

A boy wearing Edward Scissorhand's costume. How lovely! <3 br="">

While children have fun with the sweets-hunting, adults wear costume as well. They visit spooky places and haunted attractions, light the bonfires or fireworks, play pranks, tell some scary stories, watch horror films or attend a costume party.

Gothic Halloween Dinner Party
Source here

Halloween is also called All Hallows Eve, All Saints' Eve, Samhain, Noche de las Brujas (The Night of Witches). According to Wikipedia, the word halloween comes from a Scottish term for All Hallow's Eve in about 1745. In Scots, the word 'eve' is 'even' (In Bahasa Indonesia: petang/malam.), and it's contracted to e'en or een. Over time, (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en evolved into Halloween.

History of Halloween

It comes from Samhain Festival from the Old Irish language Samhain  (Pronunced /ˈsɑːwɪn/, /ˈsaʊ.ɪn/, or /ˈsaʊn/) which is celebrated by ancient Celtic people. Samhain is a celebration the end of the harvest season in culture of Gaelic people,and sometimes it's called the Celtic New Year. The Celtic people who embraced paganism used this opportunity to slaugther cattle and hoard food in preparation for winter in generations. The ancient Gael people believed that on October the 31st the gate of between the dead world and the living world would be opened. The dead endanger people living with carry disease and damage the harvests. Therefore, they lit a bonfire to burn bones of animals they are harmstrung, wearing costumes and masks to pretend as evil spirits or to attempt peace with them.

Have you ever seen a pink ghost? LOL

I would like to have this ice-scream!!

Symbols of Halloween

One of them is pumpkin which is carved into a scary face that named Jack-o'-Lantern. A candle is put inside the pumpkin so the face of Jack-o'-lantern can be seen very spooky in dark places. Why pumpkin?  FYI, North America produces many large pumpkins J

Halloween bento! :D

Another symbols describe the nature of autumn, including pumpkin and scarecrow as a guard yield. In addition, the symbols Halloween is also close to death, magic, monsters, and creepy characters the American film maker and graphic designer made. These characters are often associated with Halloween: pumpkin man, outer space creatures, witch, bats, owls, crows, vultures, haunted house

, black cat, spiders, goblins, zombies (my favorite!:D) skeletons and werewolves.

I love black cat. It's cute.

The classic horror movie and gothic literature characters like Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the mummy also used as costumes for Halloween. There are also some colors associated with Halloween items like black, orange, purple, green and red.

Okay, this is important. Frankenstein is the person who created the monster. NOT the monster's name!

That is western. How about the far east culture?

In east culture,Halloween isn’t a big national celebration since it’s not our tradition. But I think there are always some events for fun like a haunted mansion somewhere at shopping centre or mall, costume party at clubs (it may be nightclubs), restaurant and café are revamp with spooky theme. Usually, horror movies are popular. Many teens and adults watch movie together at the cinema, or they would like to buy some DVDs and watch them at the home base.

Sad but true, I haven’t visited such a spooky event yet! I even missed Resident Evil Jakarta at Gajah Mada Plaza last month. Aarggghhhh…!! T-T

I missed it T.T

That’s what I see here. By the way, please let me know if there’s any Halloween event in Jakarta. I don’t  wanna miss it this year, or I would celebrate it with my own way ALONE >_< So, how do you celebrate Halloween in your country?