Halloween Party Ideas

Halloween is a special holiday that is celebrated on the very last day of the month of October. This day revolves mostly around children, although some fun-loving adults enjoy joining in on the fun. The word of Halloween originated in the Catholic Church. It is a spin-off of the holiday of All Saints Day, also knows as All Hollows Day.

All Saints Day is a Catholic holiday in honor of the religious saints. In the 5th century BC, in Ireland, summer used to officially end on October 31, and that day was call Celtic New Year. It was thought that on this New Year day that the spirits of those who had died in the past year, would come back to earth hoping to receive another chance at life.

The Celtics believed that on this one special day, the rules of time and space did not apply and that the spirits could actually speak with the living. Obviously, this scared people terribly, and in an effort to keep the spirits away, they would put out all fires in their homes; the belief being that if the homes were cold and miserable the spirits would not wish to join them.

The people would then dress up in scary outfits and walk around making a lot of noise to scare away any spirits. This tradition has since evolved into the Halloween that we know today. This is now simply a holiday in which the most important event is wearing costumes. Halloween costumes do not need to be scary ones; many children will pretend to be favorite cartoon characters and the like.

Once dressed up, most town and cities in the United States have predetermined times in which the children go trick-or-treating. Despite the name, tricks are not often involved; as the goal of this event is to simply walk door to door in close neighborhoods to receive small treats of candy from home owners. Alternatively, neighbor families may get together to hold Halloween parties. Adults may also attend or hold Halloween parties so that they can put on a silly or scary outfit and have a bit of child-like fun.