10 holoween

Halloween II

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:18:00 +0000

Halloween II is a 1981 horror film produced by Dino De Laurentiis and is set in the fictional Midwest town of Haddonfield, Illinois, on Halloween night, 1978. It is the sequel to the influential film, Halloween (1978). While other films in the Halloween series follow, this is the last one written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. The film immediately follows the events of the first film, and centers on Myers's attempts to find and kill Laurie Strode and Samuel J. Loomis's efforts to track and kill Myers. Stylistically, the sequel reproduces certain key elements that made the original Halloween a success such as first-person camera perspectives and unexceptional settings. The film, however, departs significantly from the original by incorporating more graphic violence and gore, making it imitate more closely other films in the emerging splatter film sub-genre. Still, Halloween II was not as successful as the original, even though it grossed $25.5 million at the box office in the United States despite its $2.5 million budget. Halloween II was intended to be the last chapter of the Halloween series to revolve around Michael Myers and the Haddonfield setting, but after the lacklustre reaction to Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Myers returned in the film Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Symbols

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Here's the Halloween Symbols

You Can see so many Halloween symbols You can see it

The carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols. This is an Irish tradition of carving a lantern which goes back centuries. These lanterns are usually carved from a turnip or swede (or more uncommonly a mangelwurzel). The carving of pumpkins was first associated with Halloween in North America,[18] where the pumpkin was available, and much larger and easier to carve. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their home's doorstep after dark.

The jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard drinking old farmer who tricked the devil into climbing a tree, and trapped him by carving a cross into the trunk of the tree. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack which dooms him to forever wander the earth at night. For centuries, the bedtime parable was told by Irish parents to their children. But in America the tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Great Famine period of Irish immigration,[19] and the tradition of carving vegetable lanterns may also have been brought over by the Scottish or English; documentation is unavailable to establish when or by whom. The carved pumpkin was associated generally with harvest time in America, and did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid to late 19th century.

The imagery surrounding Halloween is largely an amalgamation of the Halloween season itself, nearly a century of work from American filmmakers and graphic artists, and a rather commercialized take on the dark and mysterious. Halloween imagery tends to involve death, magic, or mythical monsters. Common Halloween characters include ghosts, ghouls, witches, vampires, bats, owls, crows, vultures, haunted houses, pumpkinmen, black cats, aliens, spiders, goblins, zombies, mummies, skeletons, and demons. Particularly in America, symbolism is inspired by classic horror films, which contain fictional figures like Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and The Mummy. More modern horror antagonists like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, and the Jigsaw Killer have also become associated with the holiday. Homes are often decorated with these symbols around Halloween.

Black and orange are the traditional colors of Halloween

Color Symbolism
Black death, night, witches, black cats, bats, vampires
Orange pumpkins, jack o' lanterns, Autumn, the turning leaves, fire

Games and other activities

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:32:00 +0000

There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. The most common is dooking or bobbing for apples, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water; the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dooking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drop the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity which inevitably leads to a very sticky face.

Some games traditionally played at Halloween are forms of divination. In Puicíní (pronounced "poocheeny"), a game played in Ireland, a blindfolded person is seated in front of a table on which several saucers are placed. The saucers are shuffled and the seated person then chooses one by touch. The contents of the saucer determine the person's life during the following year. A saucer containing earth means someone known to the player will die during the next year, a saucer containing water foretells emigration, a ring foretells marriage, a set of Rosary beads indicates that the person will take Holy Orders (becoming a nun or a priest). A coin means new wealth, a bean means poverty, and so on. In 19th-century Ireland, young women placed slugs in saucers sprinkled with flour. The wriggling of the slugs and the patterns subsequently left behind on the saucers were believed to portray the faces of the women's future spouses.[citation needed] A traditional Irish and Scottish form of divining one's future spouse is to carve an apple in one long strip, then toss the peel over one's shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name. This custom has survived among Irish and Scottish immigrants in the rural United States.

In North America, unmarried women were frequently told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror. However, if they were destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The telling of ghost stories and viewing of horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of TV series and specials with Halloween themes (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before the holiday while new horror films, like the popular Saw (film series), are often released theatrically before the holiday to take advantage of the atmosphere.

Visiting a haunted attraction like a haunted house or hayride (especially in the northeastern or midwest of the USA) are other Halloween practices. Notwithstanding the name, such events are not necessarily held in houses, nor are the edifices themselves necessarily regarded to possess actual ghosts. A variant of the haunted house is the "haunted trail", where the public encounters supernatural-themed characters or presentations of scenes from horror films while following a trail through a field or forest. One of the largest Halloween attractions in the United States is Knott's Scary Farm in California, which features re-themed amusement park rides and a dozen different walk through mazes, plus hundreds of costumed roving performers. Among other theme parks, Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom stages a special separate admission event after regular park hours called Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party featuring a parade, stage show featuring Disney villains and a Happy HalloWishes fireworks show with a Halloween theme, while their sibling park in California, Disneyland holds Mickey's Halloween Treat at their California Adventure park. The Universal Studios theme parks in Hollywood and Orlando also feature annual Halloween events, dubbed Halloween Horror Nights.

Foods

Halloween costume

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:23:00 +0000

Halloween costumes are traditionally those of monsters such as vampires, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Costumes are also based on themes other than traditional horror, such as those of characters from television shows or movies.

Costume sales

BIGresearch conducted a survey for the National Retail Federation in the United States and found that 53.3% of consumers planned to buy a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average (up 10 dollars from the year before). They were also expected to spend $4.96 billion in 2006, up significantly from just $3.29 billion the previous year.

"'Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" has become a common sight during Halloween in North America. Started as a local event in a Philadelphia suburb in 1950, and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $119 million (US) for UNICEF since its inception. In 2006, UNICEF discontinued their Halloween collection boxes in parts of the world, citing safety and administrative concerns

Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 18:25:00 +0000

In Mexico, Halloween has been celebrated during the last 40 years where the celebrations have been influenced by the American traditions, such as the costuming of children who visit the houses of their neighbourhood in search of candy. Though the "trick-or-treat" motif is used, tricks are not generally played on residents not providing candy. Older crowds of preteens, teenagers and adults will sometimes organize Halloween-themed parties, which might be scheduled on the nearest available weekend.

Halloween in Mexico begins three days of consecutive holidays, as it is followed by All Saints' Day, which also marks the beginning of the two day celebration of the Day of the Dead or the Día de los Muertos. This might account for the initial explanations of the holiday having a traditional Mexican-Catholic slant.

Australia and New Zealand

In the southern hemisphere, spring is in full swing by October 31, and the days are rapidly growing longer and brighter. This does not mesh well with the traditional Celtic spirit of Halloween, which relies on an atmosphere of the encroaching darkness of winter.
However, Halloween has recently gained a large amount of recognition in Australia and to an extent New Zealand, largely due to American media influences. In 2006, costume shops reported a rise in sales on Halloween-themed costumes,[citation needed] on October 31, 2006. On Halloween night, horror films and horror-themed TV episodes are traditionally aired.

England and Wales

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 05:45:00 +0000

All Saints' Day (All Hallows Day) became fixed on November 1, 835, and All Souls' Day on November 2, circa 998. On All Souls' Eve, families stayed up late, and little "soul cakes" were eaten by everyone. At the stroke of midnight there was solemn silence among households, which had candles burning in every room to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes, and a glass of wine on the table to refresh them. The tradition continued in areas of northern England as late as the 1930s, with children going from door-to-door "souling" (i.e., singing songs) for cakes or money. The English Reformation in the 16th century de-emphasised holidays like All Hallows Day and its associated eve. With the rise of Guy Fawkes Night celebrations in 17th century England, many Halloween practices, especially the building of bonfires, were moved to November 5.

Halloween celebrations in the UK were repopularised in the 1980s with influence from America, and saw the reintroduction of traditions such as pumpkin carvings and trick-or-treat. [citation needed] Between 2001 and 2006, consumer spending in the UK for Halloween rose tenfold from £12m to £120m, according to Bryan Roberts from industry analysts Planet Retail, making Halloween the third most profitable holiday for supermarkets. Nowadays, adults often dress up to attend costume parties, pub parties and club parties on Halloween night.

In parts of England, there is a similar festival called holy day which falls on the November 4. During the celebration, children play a range of "tricks" (ranging from minor to more serious) on adults. One of the more serious "tricks" might include the unhinging of garden gates (which were often thrown into ponds, or moved far away). In recent years, such acts have occasionally escalated to extreme vandalism, sometimes involving street fires.

Throughout England (and much of the British Isles), children carve faces or designs into hollowed-out pumpkins.[13] Usually illuminated from within, the lanterns are displayed in windows in keeping with the night's theme of fright and horror. (See article Jack-o'-lantern.) Before the introduction of pumpkin carving from the United States, it was common to carve large swedes (a.k.a. neeps or yellow turnips), which is still done in some areas.

Bobbing for apples is a well-established Halloween custom, synonymous with the Scottish "dukin". In the game, apples were placed in a water-filled barrel, and a participant would attempt to catch an apple with one's mouth only. Once an apple was caught, it would be peeled and tossed over the shoulder in the hope that the strips would fall into the shape of a letter, which would supposedly be the first initial of the participant's true love. According to another superstition, the longer the peel, the longer the peeler's life would be; some say that the first participant to get an apple would be the first to marry.

Other Halloween festivities include fireworks, telling ghost stories, and playing children's games such as hide-and-seek. Apple tarts might be baked with a coin hidden inside, and nuts of all types are traditional Halloween fare. Bolder children may play a game called "thunder and lightning", which involves loudly knocking on a neighbor's door, then running away (like lightning). This game is known as "knock-door-run", "knock-and-run", "knock-knock-zoom-zoom", "ding-dong-ditch", or "postman's knock" in parts of the country, and is also played on Mischief Night[citation needed] Tradition has been changing, as the majority of today's children will arrive at a door and intone "trick-or-treat" in order to receive money and sweets.

There has been increasing concern about the potential for antisocial behavior, particularly among older teens, on Halloween. Cases of houses being "egg-bombed" (especially when the occupants do not give money or gifts) have been reported, and the BBC reports that for Halloween 2006 police forces have stepped up patrols to respond to such mischief

Scotland

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 10:04:00 +0000

Scotland, having a shared Gaelic culture and language with Ireland, has celebrated the festival of Samhain robustly for centuries. Robert Burns portrayed the varied customs in his poem "Hallowe'en" (1785).

Halloween, known in Scottish Gaelic as "Oidhche Shamhna", consists chiefly of children going door to door "guising", i.e., dressed in a disguise (often as a witch or ghost) and offering entertainment of various sorts. If the entertainment is enjoyed, the children are rewarded with gifts of sweets, fruits or money. There is no Scottish 'trick or treat' tradition; on the contrary, 'trick or treat' may have its origins in the guising customs.

In Scotland a lot of folklore, including that of Halloween, revolves around the belief in faeries. Children dress up in costumes and carry around a "Neepy Candle" a devil face carved into a hollowed out Neep, lit from inside, to frighten away the evil faeries.

Popular children's games played on the holiday include "dookin" for apples (i.e., retrieving an apple from a bucket of water using only one's mouth). In places, the game has been replaced (because of fears of contracting saliva-borne illnesses in the water) by standing over the bowl holding a fork in one's mouth, and releasing it in an attempt to skewer an apple using only gravity. Another popular game is attempting to eat, while blindfolded, a treacle-coated scone on a piece of string hanging from the ceiling.

Halloween Costumes Online: The Hamlet of Trick or Treat

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 01:41:00 +0000

To make or to buy your kids Halloween Costume. That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer through needle, thread and scissors or to take keyboard, mouse and monitor and ward off a sea of troubles. And by opposing them end them.

To sew and cut Halloween fabric all night or to sleep perchance to dream. Ahhhhh there's the rub.

Halloween Costumes Online must give us pause. To shop. For in that shopping spree dreams may come true. To find the perfect Halloween Costume. Must also give us pause. For who would bear the whips and scorns of ghoulish labor Halloween after Halloween.

There are those who would tell us that making Halloween Costumes is best. The Oppressor's wrong. Don't fall for it. (modern vernacular)The Online Halloween Costume. The proud man's costume. The pangs of despised costume making. Do delay.

The insolence of labor. The spurns of the home made costume makers. Ahhh! The impatience of the unworthy. When he himself might his Halloween Costume buy. With paypal and credit card who wouldnot his needle and thread lay down. Who would burdens bear. To grunt and sweat under a weary life on Halloween.

But that the joy of something easier. Online Halloween Costumes. The newly discovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will. And makes us rather bear those spending habits we have.

Thus convenience does make slaves of us all. And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of decision.Halloween Costumes Online. An enterprise of great pitch and moment. With this regard the home Halloween costume makers' spirits turn awry and lose in the name of action. (mouse action)

Ahhhhhh There's The Rub

Costumes for Halloween that Toddlers Want the Most

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:43:00 +0000

Costumes for Halloween toddlers are going to love are found online. If you are looking for the latest types of cartoons or if you are searching for a somewhat scary type of costume that is going to fit your toddler you will find a wide selection online. The costumes for Halloween toddlers wear are smaller versions of something that you might consider wearing. If you want to match your costume to your child s or toddlers costumer you can do that as well, and be the talk of all those that you will visit over Halloween.

Costumes for Halloween toddlers wear can be just as expensive as the costume that you purchase for yourself. You want to purchase a costume that is a little bigger, so they could wear it more than once, or you could have another child wear it in a different Halloween year. Often times, cousins will share Halloween costumes because they do remain popular for a few years.

The costume Halloween toddler s wear will be those types that make them feel good about the holiday. It is going to be important that you remember, some years it is going to be very cold, and in some areas, it will even snow! If you are searching for a Halloween costume for your toddler, think about the type of costume that can be worn over top of a coat, or one that is going to keep the toddler very warm, even in those cold months of October, as it can be in some areas of the country.

A Halloween costume is one that is going to be worn all day long. You will want your toddlers Halloween costume to last all day long. Avoid purchasing the type of costume that is made of thin plastic that is going to rip easily. Purchasing a toddlers Halloween costume that is sturdy and that can be worn two days in a row is a costume that is well worth your money. Often times, you might consider heading out for a few hours for a parade and then trick or treating, and then you want to head out to Halloween parties the next night, so you will want your toddlers Halloween costume to be worn more than just one day.

Costume Halloween toddler sizes are available form 2x and up through 6x and then the children s sizes begin. If you are looking for toddler size Halloween costumes you can find them online, where the selection is truly one that is bigger and better than in any local store you are going to find. For the small baby, those who are just six months and up through 4x you will find a good number of Halloween costumes that you choose from for that first Halloween night out on the town for your child.

Trick-or-treating

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:52:00 +0000

History

The practice of dressing up in costumes and begging door to door for treats on holidays goes back to the Middle Ages, and includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of "souling," when poor folk would go door to door, receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (All Hallows Day). It originated in the British Isles, and is still popular in Ireland, and in some parts of England and Scotland. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering, whining], like a beggar at Hallowmas."

Yet there is no evidence that souling was ever practiced in America, and trick-or-treating may have developed in America independent of any Irish or British antecedent. There is little primary documentation of masking or costuming on Halloween — in Ireland, the UK, or America — before 1900. The earliest reference to ritual begging on Halloween in English-speaking America occurs in 1915, with another isolated reference in Chicago in 1920. The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but do not depict trick-or-treating. Ruth Edna Kelley, in her 1919 history of the holiday, The Book of Hallowe'en, makes no mention of such a custom in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America." It does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the earliest known uses in print of the term "trick or treat" appearing in 1934, and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939. Thus, although the first great wave of Irish immigration to America came during the Irish Potato Famine in 1845–1849, and British and Irish immigration to America peaked in the 1880s, ritualized begging on Halloween was virtually unknown in America until generations later.

Trick-or-treating spread from the western United States eastward, stalled by sugar rationing that began in April 1942 during World War II and did not end until June 1947.

Early national attention to trick-or-treating was given in October 1947 issues of the children's magazines Jack and Jill and Children's Activities, and by Halloween episodes of the network radio programs The Baby Snooks Show in 1946 and The Jack Benny Show and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet in 1948. The custom had become firmly established in popular culture by 1952, when Walt Disney portrayed it in the cartoon Trick or Treat, and UNICEF first conducted a national campaign for children to raise funds for the charity while trick-or-treating

Although some popular histories of Halloween have characterized trick-or-treating as an adult invention to rechannel Halloween activities away from vandalism, nothing in the historical record supports this theory. To the contrary, adults, as reported in newspapers from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, typically saw it as a form of extortion, with reactions ranging from bemused indulgence to anger (the "trick" part of "trick or treat" was a threat to prank). Likewise, as portrayed on radio shows, children would have to explain what trick-or-treating was to puzzled adults, and not the other way around. Sometimes even the children protested: for Halloween 1948, members of the Madison Square Boys Club in New York City carried a parade banner that read "American Boys Don't Beg."

Trick-or-treating

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:48:00 +0000

Trick-or-treating, also known as guising, is an activity for children on Halloween in which they proceed from house to house in costumes, asking for treats such as candy with the question, "Trick or treat?" Trick-or-treating is one of the main traditions of Halloween. It has become socially expected that if one lives in a neighborhood with children one should purchase candy in preparation for trick-or-treaters. The National Confectioners Association reported in 2005 that 80 percent of adults in America planned to give out candy to trick-or-treaters,[1] and that 93 percent of children planned to go trick-or-treating.[2]

The activity is popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada, and due to culture importation in recent years has started to occur among children in Australia and New Zealand, in many parts of Europe, and in the Saudi Aramco camps of Dhahran and Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia. The most significant growth — and resistance — is in the United Kingdom, where the police have threatened to prosecute parents who allow their children to carry out the "trick" element.[3] [4]

In Sweden children dress up as witches and go trick-or-treating on Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter) while Danish children dress up in various attires and go trick-or-treating on Fastelavn (or the next day, Shrove Monday).

Around the world

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:46:00 +0000

Ireland

Halloween is very popular in Ireland, where it is said to have originated, and is known in Irish as "Oíche Shamhna" or "Samhain Night". Pre-Christian Celts had an autumn festival, Samhain(pronounced /ˈsˠaunʲ/from the Old Irish samain), "End of Summer", a pastoral and agricultural "fire festival" or feast, when the dead revisited the mortal world, and large communal bonfires would hence be lit to ward off evil spirits. (See Origin: Celtic observation of Samhain below).

Pope Gregory IV standardized the date of All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day, on November 1 in the name of the entire Western Church in 835. As it now began at sunset, the holiday coincided exactly with Samhain. Although there is no official documentation that Gregory considered Samhain when selecting this date, it seems consistent with the common practice of leaving pagan festivals and buildings intact (e.g., the Pantheon), while overlaying a Christian meaning.[2] While Celts might have been content to move All Saints' Day from the previous date of April 20, ("...the Felire of Oengus and the Martyrology of Tallaght prove that the early medieval churches celebrated the feast of All Saints upon 20 April.")[3] it is speculated without evidence that they were unwilling to give up their pre-existing autumn festival of the dead and continued to celebrate Samhain[citation needed].

Unfortunately, there is frustratingly little primary documentation of how Halloween was celebrated in preindustrial Ireland. Historian Nicholas Rogers has written,

It is not always easy to track the development of Halloween in Ireland and Scotland from the mid-seventeenth century, largely because one has to trace ritual practices from [modern] folkloric evidence that do not necessarily reflect how the holiday might have changed; these rituals may not be "authentic" or "timeless" examples of pre-industrial times.[4]

On Halloween night in present-day Ireland, adults and children dress up as creatures from the underworld (e.g., ghosts, ghouls, zombies, witches and goblins), light bonfires, and enjoy spectacular fireworks displays (despite the fact that such displays are usually illegal). Halloween was perceived as the night during which the division between the world of the living and the otherworld was blurred so spirits of the dead and inhabitants from the underworld were able to walk free on the earth. It was necessary to dress as a spirit or otherworldly creature when venturing outdoors to blend in. The children knock on the neighbors' doors, in order to gather fruit, nuts, and sweets for the Halloween festival. Salt was once sprinkled in the hair of the children to protect against evil spirits.

The houses are frequently adorned with pumpkins or turnips carved into scary faces; lights or candles are sometimes placed inside the carvings to provide an eerie effect. The traditional Halloween cake in Ireland is the barmbrack, which is a fruit bread. Each family member gets one slice. There is a piece of rag, a coin or a ring in each cake; if one gets the rag, then financial prospects are doubtful. Getting a coin indicates a prosperous future, and getting a ring is a sure sign of impending romance or continued happiness. Nowadays, only the ring is usually included in commercially produced barmbracks.

Games are often played, such as bobbing for apples, where apples, peanuts and other nuts and fruit and some small coins are placed in a basin of water. The apples and nuts float, but the coins, which sink, are harder to catch. Everyone takes turns catching as many items possible using only their mouths. In some households, the coins are embedded in the fruit for the children to "earn" as they catch each apple. The Scottish and English have adapted the tradition to a game named "ducking", in which a participant quickly dunks in a water-filled container in an attempt to get a prize, without being submerged too long. Another common game involves the hands-free eating of an apple hung on a string attached to the ceiling.

Irish children have a week-long Halloween break from school; the last Monday in October is a public holiday given for Halloween even though they often do not fall on the same day. See Public holidays in the Republic of Ireland.

As of 2006, several County and City Councils around Ireland have imposed bans on bonfires, citing apparent health and safety issues.

रॉब जोम्बिए Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 05:28:00 +0000

This is very cool movie, Sex, Violent and horror

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 05:18:00 +0000

Halloween is an observance celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting sweets or money. It is celebrated in much of the Western world, though most common in the United States, Puerto Rico, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Canada. Irish, Scots and other immigrants brought older versions of the tradition to North America in the 19th century. Most other Western countries have embraced Halloween as a part of American pop culture in the late 20th century.

The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe'en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before "All Hallows Day". In Ireland, the name was All Hallows Eve and this name is still used by some older people. Halloween was also sometimes called All Saints' Eve. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries and given a Christian interpretation. In Mexico November 1st and 2nd are celebrated as the Day of the Dead.

Halloween is also called Pooky Night in some parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit.

On Great Britain and Ireland in particular, the pagan Celts celebrated the Day of the Dead on All Hallows Day (1st November). The spirits supposedly rose from the dead and, in order to attract them, food was left on the doors. To scare off the evil spirits, the Celts wore masks. When the Romans invaded Great Britain, they embellished the tradition with their own, which is both a celebration of the harvest and of honoring the dead. Very much later, these traditions were transported to the United States, Canada and Australia.

Halloween is sometimes associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is most potent (e.g. Catalan mythology about witches).

Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (orng keren) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 04:29:00 +0000

HALLOWEEN, or Allhallows Eve, is a festival celebrated on October 31, the evening prior to the Christian Feast of All Saints (All Saints' Day). Halloween is the name for the eve of Samhain, a celebration marking the beginning of winter as well as the first day of the New Year within the ancient Celtic culture of the British Isles. The time of Samhain consisted of the eve of the feast and the day itself (October 31 and November 1). This event was a crucial seam in the social and religious fabric of the Celtic year, and the eve of Samhain set the tone for the annual celebration as a threatening, fantastic, mysterious rite of passage to a new year.

The religious beliefs of the Celts emphasized pastoral deities, and Celtic festivals stressed seasonal transitions. Beltene, the beginning of summer, was celebrated at the end of April and the beginning of May. Samhain signaled the commencement of winter and, together with Beltene, divided the year into cold and hot seasons. Samhain marked the end of preparations for winter, when flocks and herds had been secured and harvested crops had been stored.

The eve of this festival brought with it another kind of harvest. On this occasion, it was believed that a gathering of supernatural forces occurred as during no other period of the year. The eve and day of Samhain were characterized as a time when the barriers between the human and supernatural worlds were broken. Otherworldly entities, such as the souls of the dead, were able to visit earthly inhabitants, and humans could take the opportunity to penetrate the domains of the gods and supernatural creatures. Fiery tributes and sacrifices of animals, crops, and possibly human beings were made to appease supernatural powers who controlled the fertility of the land. Not a festival honoring any particular Celtic deity, Samhain acknowledged the entire spectrum of nonhuman forces that roamed the earth during that period.

Given the upheaval of normal human activities and expectations on the eve and day of Samhain, it was also thought to be an especially propitious time for ascertaining information about the future course of one's life. Various methods of divination were used by individuals attempting to discover their fortunes, good or ill, and to foretell events such as marriage, sickness, or death.

Samhain remained a popular festival among the Celtic people throughout the Christianization of Great Britain. The British church attempted to divert this interest in pagan customs by adding a Christian celebration to the calendar on the same date as Samhain. The Christian festival, the Feast of All Saints, commemorates the known and unknown saints of the Christian religion just as Samhain had acknowledged and paid tribute to the Celtic deities. The eve of the Celtic festival was also Christianized, becoming the Vigil of All Saints or Allhallows Eve (with special offices existing in both the Anglican and Roman churches). The medieval British commemoration of All Saints' Day may have prompted the universal celebration of this feast throughout the Christian church.

The customs of Samhain survived independently of the Christian holy day. Gradually, the eve of Allhallows (Halloween) lost much of its Celtic religious significance for the masses, and it became a secular observance, although many traditionally Celtic ideas continued to be associated with the evening. Divination activities remained a popular practice. Adults, dressed in fantastic disguises and masks, imitated supernatural beings and visited homes where occupants would offer tributes of food and drink to them. A fear of nocturnal creatures, such as bats and owls, persisted, because these animals were believed to communicate with the spirits of the dead.

Halloween was celebrated only in the Celtic areas of Great Britain: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and northern rural England. In non-Celtic England, many of the customs of Halloween were assimilated into a commemorative festival that arose in the seventeenth century as the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day (November 5). English Protestant settlers in the New World did not bring the custom of Halloween with them. Irish and Scottish immigrants introduced scattered Allhallows Eve observances to America, but it was only in the years after the massive immigration of the Irish to the United States during the potato famine (1845–1846) that Halloween became a national event.

Modern Halloween activities have centered on mischief making and masquerading in costumes, often resembling otherworldly characters. Folk customs, now treated as games (such as bobbing for apples), have continued from the various divination practices of the ancient celebrants of this occasion. Supernatural figures (such as the ghost, the witch, the vampire, the devil) play a key role in supplying an aura of the mysterious to the evening, whether or not they originally had an association with the festival. Children are particularly susceptible to the imagery of Halloween, as can be seen in their fascination with the demonic likeness of a carved and illuminated pumpkin, known as the jack-o'-lantern. In recent times, children have taken up the practice of dressing in Halloween costumes and visiting homes in search of edible and monetary treats, lightly threatening to play a trick on the owner if a treat is not produced. There also has been renewed interest in Halloween as a time when adults can also cross cultural boundaries and shed their identities by indulging in an uninhibited evening of frivolity. Thus, the basic Celtic quality of the festival as an evening of annual escape from normal realities and expectations has remained into the present.

10 holoween

Halloween II

Symbols

Games and other activities

Halloween costume

Mexico

England and Wales

Scotland

Halloween Costumes Online: The Hamlet of Trick or Treat

Costumes for Halloween that Toddlers Want the Most

Trick-or-treating

Trick-or-treating

Around the world

रॉब जोम्बिए Halloween

Wíkipedia© on Halloween

Halloween