Halloween is celebrated every year on October 31. Halloween is full of costumes, candy, and jack-o-lanterns now, but, Halloween began many years ago with different traditions.

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, for the most part in Ireland, the UK, and northern France celebrated their new year on November 1.

The day marked the end of summer and welcomed winter along with the harvest. This was also a time associated with a large amount of human death.

Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the world of living and the dead became one. The night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, at this time they believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

Celts would wear costumes, generally animal heads and skins, as a celebration. They would also make sacrifices to the Celtic deities. The sacrifices consisted of a bonfire where they would throw crops and animals.

When the celebration was over, they would re-light their hearth fires, which had gone out earlier in the evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

Even though October 31 was a celebration it is now considered a spooky holiday.