Halloween is the time of year where people dress up and go out to trick-or-treat. Kids get candy to share and fight with their friends about it. All around America, houses are decorated and filled with spookiness. It all started as a old tradition in Europe where the Celts held the festival of Samhain. People then celebrated it as the ending of summer and the beginning of winter where the spirits would come out at night on Oct. 31.

“I enjoyed it as a kid because my parents would host big parties, they had big parties and since I played baseball all the kids on my team would come over,” said Jody Herring, English teacher.

A lot of times, the first thing people do to start celebrating Halloween is decorate and carve pumpkins for parties. People around the world get decorations from stores and get candles for their pumpkins. This tradition was  initially was created from an Irish legend. The legend is about a guy named Jack who was drunk and tried to prank the Devil. To prank him he told the devil that he wanted an apple, so the devil went up the tree to get him one. Then Jack carved a cross on the tree so the Devil could not come down. The Devil could not come down so Jack and the Devil made a deal that the devil could not go after his soul. When Jack died he was turned down by heaven and left to roam around and as he turned around the devil through coal at his hand. At this time he was holding a turnip. Since The turnip is hard to symbolize people now use pumpkins and call them Jack-o-Lanterns.

“My whole neighborhood has parties and parades where kids would show off their costumes,” said Brandon Losi, senior.

Most people celebrate Halloween at night but the Celts had their own festival.  People would light fires and celebrate the dead. The Celts thought that the ghost of the dead would return on this night. The holiday was often associated with human death where they would burn crops and animals for sacrifices. They also attempted to tell each other’s fortunes at the festival. The day after they would celebrate All Saints’ Day.

“I  honestly love watching my mom running around the house, putting up decorations,” said Haleigh Rose, freshman.

When Halloween first came to America it was not as celebrated as it is today. Only people in the southern parts of America would celebrate and people of some religions, such as Christians would not celebrate the holiday either. They used it as a time to celebrate their harvest and that led to public events being held so people could all come together. By the second half of the nineteenth century, Irish immigrants started to flood America. They started the traditions of dressing up and going out.

“Kids would show off their costumes, so growing up I loved showing off for halloween,” said Losi.

The reasoning behind dressing up was to scare off spirits of the dead. People would go out and wear costumes that were frightening just so the spirits would go away. They believed if they did not dress up that the spirits would haunt them Oct. 31. Now it is just used as a fun way that kids can celebrate. At first kids did not celebrate, only adults could because people thought it would scare them. People in America decided to make it less frightening for kids so they came up with Trick-or-Treat and started to have parties.

“I like creepy things, and I like horror movies, and the change and weather the fact that all those things happen at once makes it my favorite holiday,” said Herring.