By Peri Sualp…
What is Halloween and why do we celebrate? The night of 31st October, is the Eve of All Saints’ Day, often celebrated by children dressing up in frightening masks and costumes.
Actually, Halloween is thought to be associated with the Celtic festival Samhain, when ghosts and 
spirits were believed to be abroad. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, believed that the dead returned to earth on Samhain. Samhain is actually a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the “darker half” of the year. Traditionally, it is celebrated from 31 October to 1 November, as the Celtic day began and ended at sunset.
Halloween is certainly not something you really have to celebrate and many religions don’t even celebrate Halloween! Many beliefs celebrate this day as a reason for fun and not as celebrating the ghosts and spirits approach to the world. Halloween is also known as All Saints’ or Hallowmas on 1st November and All Souls’ Day on 2nd November, thus giving the holiday on 31st October the full name of All Hallows’ Eve (meaning the evening before All Hallows’ Day).
And how did trick or treating come to life?
In North America, trick-or-treating has been a Halloween tradition since the late 1920s. In Britain and Ireland the tradition of going house-to-house collecting food at Halloween goes back at least as far as the 16th century, as had the tradition of people wearing costumes at Halloween.
In the last few decades celebrating Halloween became really fashionable mostly because of the popular culture, the effects of capitalism and consumption increase of people all around the world. Do you know Halloween is the second highest grossing commercial holiday after Christmas? Each and every year you see more decorations and costumes and accessories on the market, and every year there are more places like cafes, bars etc organizing Halloween events. People simply love this! Halloween gives people the freedom of dressing up however they want. There’s no limit for accessories and the variety of the make up is unbelievable. I think it’s the time of the year for imagination where people can create and realise their own self.
For the last 4 years we, as a ‘A Clean Cyprus’ team, organized a “Halloween Happening” to support charities. All were big and attractive organizations especially for children. But this year we decided to keep it small among our team because we are really busy with our upcoming charity concert BEYOND for SOS Children’s Village on 11th November at Bellapais Abbey. Click here for more information
Those who are insistently asking for this year’s “Halloween Happening” I am afraid you have to wait until next year!
Happy Halloween to ya’all….
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