THE ORIGIN OF HALLOWEEN Part One.

Halloween is celebrated on October 31st every year. The holiday began as a Celtic festival from Ireland called Samhain. Halloween became more popular worldwide with the start of the Christian holiday called All Saints Day. Halloween is traditionally a holiday that is meant to ward off evil spirits. During the time of the Celtic traditions, people would carve out scary faces and figures in giant turnips, place a candle inside, and set in their windows to scare away evil ghosts and enemies on Halloween. More than a thousand years ago the Christian church named November 1 All Saints Day (also called All Hallows.) This was a special holy day to honor the saints and other people who died for their religion. The night before All Hallows was called Hallows Eve. Later the name was changed to Halloween. Part Two Nowadays the turnips have been replaced by orange pumpkins, but the carving tradition is still continued, as well as lighting the pumpkins on the night of Halloween. The traditional colors that are used for most decorations for Halloween are black and orange. There are certain characters that are associated with Halloween: ghosts, witches, skeletons, vampires, werewolves, bats and black cats. Some religious groups do not celebrate Halloween because they feel it goes against their religious beliefs as a way of worshiping evil. Halloween is meant to scare off dead people and evil spirits. Halloween is more of a dark tradition with the idea that some spirits and ghosts come back around that time to scare or hurt people. However, most people do not really worry about the scary parts of Halloween and instead enjoy eating the candies, wearing the crazy costumes and spending time with friends and family while they visit others in their community.

UNDERSTANDING TEXT:

1) What is the origin of this celebration?

2) When did Halloween become more popular?
3) What is the meaning of the Halloween?
4) What did Celtic do to scare way evil ghosts and enemies on Halloween?
5) What are the traditional colors that are used in this celebration?
6) Are there characters associated in Halloween? What are the characters? 7) Why some religious groups don't celebrate Halloween?​