Every year, people of all ages put a huge effort into celebrating Halloween by creating the best Halloween costumes they can – and by ‘best’, we mean ‘scariest’. Halloween is after all about scaring people! And it’s a huge event, especially in the US, where people will start planning their Halloween costumes months ahead of time, and will often lavish great expense on getting them just right. Halloween is second only to Christmas in terms of its importance and money spent.
Unlike Christmas however, Halloween isn’t a Christian festival, but has its origins in ancient times, way before the advent of Christianity. The ancient Celts were a pagan people who believed in both good and evil spirits, and their traditions held that on Halloween night, the veil between the spirit and physical worlds opened, and the ghosts of the dead would return to torment the living.
As part of their efforts to protect themselves from these spirits, the Celts painted their faces with soot, creating a scary mask-like effect. This practice eventually led to the creation of the Halloween masks that are such a vital part of today’s Halloween costumes, except we are trying to scare others, rather than protect ourselves against bad spirits!
Halloween has now become associated not just with ghosts, but with all things spooky and supernatural, and our costumes reflect this fascination with the darker side of existence. However not everyone who dons a Halloween costume goes for a macabre look – in fact, Halloween costumes come in all flavors, including period dress, biblical characters, superheroes, cartoon characters, sexy uniforms and many more.
But however much fun we have on Halloween night, it is that added hint of menace that is so integral to the festival that makes it so appealing to many, and which maintains the modern-day Halloween celebration’s connections with its ancient roots.
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