Halloween

About Halloween:

The modern holiday of Halloween may have its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain. The festival of Samhain celebrates the end of harvest. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the alive and the deceased would merge and the dead would become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. That day represented the last day of summer to the Celts. On this day when the spirits gathered, they would decide whose body it would infiltrate for the next year. Supposedly, that was a prerequisite for a peaceful entrance into heaven occupying another living body for a year penance. The Celts would dress up as witches, ghosts, and demons to scare these spirits away. They went around their dark houses making as much noise possible to scare the spirits as well. They took these acts to the streets with big bon fires and burn those they thought were already possessed.

The jack-o-lantern came about from an Irish man names Jack. According to folklore, he was always causing trouble. One day Jack picked on the devil himself. Jack convinced the devil to climb a tree. Once the devil did, Jack carved a cross on the trunk so the devil would get stuck. While in the tree, Jack told the devil to stop tempting him to do bad things to the town. The devil gave in and promised Jack that he'd never tempt him to sin again. When Jack passed away, he wasn't allowed into Heaven because of his foolish ways and the devil wouldn't let him go to hell after the trick Jack played. So, Jack was forced to spend eternity in cold and dark recesses of limbo. Jack pleaded to the devil to give him some embers to light his way. The devil gave him one ember. Jack put it inside a turnip that Jack had chewed the middle out of thus, a Jack-O-Lantern.

Fun Facts:

• We make Jack-O-Lanterns out of pumpkins because when the Irish came to America in 1840 to escape famine, there were only a vast amount of pumpkins, not turnips.
• Halloween was originally celebrated into two days Beltane, which took place on May 1st to celebrate the birth of summer and Samhain, which took place on November 1st and marked to death of summer.
• Halloween comes from "Hallow Even" or "Eve of all Hallows".

Activities:

• Paint mini pumpkins
• Make paper plate Jack-O-Lanterns with construction paper
• Have a Halloween scavenger hunt
• Make spiders out of pipe cleaner
• Make rice krispie pumpkins by food coloring rice krispies and making them into rice krispie treats then ball them up like pumpkins and stick some black colored rice krispies for the eyes and mouth
• Have a Halloween party
• Dress up in a Halloween costume
• Go to a haunted house
• Carve a pumpkin
• Watch scary movies with friends and family