Four Fun Facts You Didn’t Know About Halloween

What exactly is Halloween? For many, it is merely a reason to dress up and be someone else for a night. For kids, it’s a chance to collect loads of free candies and chocolates. For business people, it’s an annual money-making machine. In truth, Halloween is basically a holiday so mixed up with historical facts that people perceive it as a night when you wear a costume and be whoever you want to be. This is rather fitting, considering that historically, this holiday has had a similar identity crisis. Below are four important things you most likely didn’t know about Cheapest Christmas costumes .

Instead of January 1, the New Year began on November 1 for the Celts. For them, it began at the end of summer harvest and the onset of winter. The Celts believed that the eve of November 1 was the time dead and evil spirits roamed the earth to cause enormous problems including destroying crops and taking out lives. The presence of these spirits enabled the Celtic priests to make predictions about the coming winter months and the future of the tribe’s people. This resulted to people wearing costumes in an effort to hide their true selves from the evil spirits.

Begging is a lowly thing to do, while trick-or-treating is fun and kids love doing it. While both are essentially the same, the only real difference between them is the latter is sanctioned, hence the nationwide popularity of this practice. However in some US states, Halloween is called the “Beggars’ Night”. In fact, some groups have campaigned against trick-or-treating, labeling it as extortion and a senseless tradition. Historically, trick-or-treating really is a form of extortion.

The practice originated from a practice once performed by the extremely poor people in the British Isles around November 1. Often called “souling”, these people would go door to door begging for food and clothing, and they would offer to pray for the souls of the dead in exchange.