The same time every year we celebrate Halloween, the spookiest time of all. Well, it’s almost that time of year again, and GC is ready to live it up. Halloween can be celebrated in many ways. Though it was originally celebrated when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts in the Celtic festival of Samhain, we now commemorate it by putting out pumpkins and trick or treating. This holiday can have many customs, read on to find out how students here at GC spend their Halloweens.

Origin

Halloween came from the Celtic festival of Samhain, as well as the traditions stated before. When they first started the tradition, November 1 was marked as the end of harvest and the start of the dark, cold winter. This time was very frequently associated with human death. People believed on that night the boundaries between the living and dead worlds blurred. However, on the night of October 31 they celebrated, believing the dead returned to the earth. Eventually Halloween came to America, where we celebrated it with “Play Parties.” They consisted of sharing stories, telling fortunes, and singing with dancing. Though it wasn’t truly popular in America until the second half of the 19^th century, we now celebrate it all around and enjoy ourselves.

Traditions

Though many families have fun, exciting traditions for Halloween, many don’t. When Haven Tate was asked about her family traditions she responded simply with, “We usually chill at home and watch movies.” When Ayden Chumley was questioned about it, he said, “We eat candy, and go and get candy from others.” Although these are both fun, many people don’t even have any family traditions. When interviewed Evelin Cornejo stated, “I don’t really do anything on Halloween.” Despite some not doing anything, we still have a few people going for the classic, trick or treating. Emma Priest says, “We usually go trick or treating, take my sister, go trick or treating around my neighborhood.” Plus, a lot of people stay at home such as, Nathalia Toledo-Montes and Ian Bigwood

Decorations

For decorations people carve out pumpkins and leave them out on their porch. Gel stickers are often attached to windows for show. Others set out inflatables for show on their lawns.  Most haunted houses are decorated with cob webs, fake blood, motion activated decorations, audio recorded screams, lightening, and fog machines. Shayla Green even mentioned her family does different themes each year. She stated, “Okay, for example if my family were to pick skeletons as the theme it would be the main thing this year and we’d decorate with skeletons.” As you can tell many people have their own ways of decorating on Halloween. How do you spend your Halloween?

What About You?

In summary, we all celebrate Halloween a little different here. Some don’t do anything at all, while some spend the holiday watching movies with family.  Many decorate with pumpkins, though quite a few don’t decorate at all. Regardless of where Halloween started, what decorations you put out (if any), or how you spend this spooky time – it’s still an incredibly cool holiday. Consider how you’ll be spending this time of year in 2021, and leave a comment to tell us all about it!