Halloween is a holiday that is celebrated in many different ways on October 31st annually by most cultures. The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter.

It was believed that during this time, the boundary between the living and dead was blurred, allowing spirits to roam the earth. Halloween began as All Saints’ Day, All Souls’ Day, and Samhain; the holidays essentially merged into one creating Halloween. This holiday was a time for communities to gather and light bonfires. At the time people would dress in costumes made of animal heads and skins to ward off roaming ghosts.

John Hawley, a teacher at Tahoma High School stated, “Growing up as a kid I remember dressing up in a different costume every year and going from house to house with my friends and family.” Hawley then stated his favorite Halloween tradition was carpooling with his aunts and uncles to go to the richer neighborhoods to get more of a selection of candy. Halloween was invented around 2,000 years ago and trick-or-treating became a thing in the 1920s-1930’s.

We asked Jenny Smith a 65-year-old grandmother of a Tahoma student how much Halloween has changed since her generation and she responded with, “Halloween hasn’t changed much since I was kid, it has been very traditional in my family to carve pumpkins, put a costume on and go trick-or-treating and end the night off with a stomach full of candy” Jen also said she and her friends would go around the circle and share scary stories.

Halloween has never been and still is not just about getting candy. It’s about spending time with the people close to you and having fun with the different identities you can portray yourself as.