How did Halloween become a day of costumes and candy?

Answer 1

Halloween Come From?

All Hallows Eve is actually the base of the origin of the name "Halloween" after the more commonly used phrase "All Hallows Eve" became "All Hallows Even" and then later it was shortened to Halloween in the 16th century. Throughout the years this holiday known as Halloween came to be something of a melting pot of ideas contributed by various cultures and belief systems. Europeans came together and meshed Celtic ideas, Catholic ideas and the Roman religious rituals in to one day of celebration that fell around the time that the Celtic tradition of Samhain fell, the turning of the seasons when the world became a darker place by virtue of the sun's position in the sky. Combining the Celtic idea of Samhain, the Catholic beliefs of All Saints Eve and All Souls Day, and the traditional Roman celebration of Parentalia created the holiday we now know as Halloween.

One such example of this is the wearing of costumes and scary masks during the night of Halloween. While many, particularly children, believe that the wearing of costumes is done in order to get candy and the "best" costume is the one that yields the most candy, very few actually understand the roots of wearing a costume on Halloween. Wearing costumes hailed from the Celtic tradition of Samhain and was done to scare away evil spirits that were thought to be able to pass through to our world during a time when the boundary between their world and ours became thinner due to the changing times of sun fall.

Among other Halloween traditions that hailed from older cultural traditions are the carving of jack-o-lanterns as mentioned above. Although the Celts used turnips to carve their jack-o-lanterns to scare away spirits because turnips were more readily available, traditionally more modern societies utilize pumpkins due to their availability at the time of the year as well as the fact that they create much larger carving surfaces. Part of the Jack-o-Lantern tradition arises from the fact that during this time of the year harvests are generally brought in and stockpiled to prevent damage from frost and provide food through the winter time. It is likely that since harvests were being brought in around the time of Halloween that the Celts spotted the opportunity to utilize some of their harvest to scare away the spirits that they were so superstitiously afraid of.

One of the biggest factors of Halloween that many people often question is the concept of monsters, ghosts and demons. While these factors generally have their roots in the theory of the Celts that evil spirits would cross in to the world during the latter half of the year,

Where evil spirits used to be connected with spirituality for the Celts the idea of monsters and ghosts became much more appealing to the societies of today that vary widely in their religious beliefs and cultural traditions. Over the years the idea of Halloween began to focus not on the religious aspect of lost souls and evil spirits but more on the media portrayal of evil spirits, ghosts and monsters. The tradition of scaring away the evil spirits became a tradition of dressing up like the most evil spirit and rather than trying to scare away spirits, today's trick or treaters are more often than not trying to scare each other.

Well trick or treating actually dates all the way back to the middle ages. During the middle ages in Ireland and England before All Souls Day poor people would seek money by knocking on the door of the rich and offering prayers for the dead on All Souls Day in return for money or food.

It was the combination of this tradition and the Celtic tradition of dressing to ward off evil spirits that resulted in trick or treating. Over the years trick or treating went from being a way to provide sustenance to a family who could not afford food to being a way for children to obtain candy in return for their efforts at dressing in fearful Halloween costumes. It is believed that trick or treating of this sort made its appearance in the 1930's.

Answer 2

To scare away the bad spirits that rome the earth on halloween.