Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it just a harmless celebration from ancient times?

Halloween this year will be celebrated on

31 October. It is usually enjoyed mostly by children dressed in costumes and going door-to-door collecting candy. It is well-known in much of the western world. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. The form “Halloween” derives from Hallowe’en, an old contraction, still retained in Scotland, of “All Hallow’s Eve” so called as it is the day before the Catholic All Saints holy day, which used to be called “All Hallows”, derived from All Hallowed Souls. Halloween was formerly also sometimes called All Saints’ Eve.

The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries (along with Christmas and Easter, two other traditional northern European pagan holidays) and given a Christian reinterpretation.

Today it is most commonly celebrated in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Canada and sometimes in Australia and New Zealand.

Irish, Scots and other immigrants brought older versions of the tradition to North America in the 19th century.

Symbols

Halloween’s theme is spooky or scary things involving mythical monsters. Commonly-

associated Halloween characters include ghosts, witches, bats, black cats, and owls as well as certain fictional figures like Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. Homes are often decorated with these symbols around Halloween.

Black and orange are the traditional colours of Halloween. There are also elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins and scarecrows, reflected in symbols of Halloween.

Jack-O-Lantern

The Jack-O-Lantern, a carved vegetable lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween’s most prominent symbols. The Irish used turnips as their “Jack’s lanterns” originally. But when the immigrants came to America , they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember. Many families that celebrate Halloween will carve a pumpkin into a scary or comical face and place it on the home’s doorstep on Halloween night for fun.

Trick-or-treating

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On 2 November, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for “soul cakes”, made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors.

Retrieved from: Wikipedia

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HALLOWEEN COMPETITION

Your entries…

The Haunted House

One Halloween my friends and I were going trick-or-treating in our neighbourhood. Down the street from us was an old deserted house that every one thought was haunted. My mother said: “Don’t you dare go near that house!!!” naturally, her warning made us even more curious.

We went to the house and rang the bell. There was no answer. We tried the door. It was unlocked, so we entered the house. The door slammed behind us and then we saw huge fangs covered in blood flying at us hissing “enter”. At that moment my friends and I nearly jumped out of our skins.

When we finally felt the courage to move on we crept down the corridor and on the floor there were some blue beady eyeballs staring right at us with deep gloomy eyes.

I was terrified and started to shiver. Even though we were all scared to death, finally we moved on.

At the end of the corridor we thought there was a flicker of light and so I thought it was the end of the line. When we had reached the end of the corridor, we saw a child’s skeleton wearing yellow socks and on them was a drop of rat’s blood. A shiver went down all the way from my head to my toe tips. I noticed that the skeleton had extremely long green fingernails and inside his skull was a candle. My blood turned cold and I totally freaked out. We all looked at each other and began to run as fast as our legs could carry us.

At the end we saw the street lamp. We all ran out and ran home. Then I told my mother what had happened and when she spoke to me again and turned around she said: “I told you not to go near that house.” Suddenly she turned into a red blooded mummy before my very eyes. At that moment I just died.

Rebekah Tabone

A Spooky Halloween Night

Mary was out one dark October night, running in the park. She heard a strange sound coming from the bushes, and decided to go and investigate. Mary slowly crept in the bushes.

All of a sudden, a skeleton jumped out dancing. The strangest thing about it was that it was wearing a colourful coat and yellow with blue socks. Its eyes were glaring in the dark and its bones were cracking.

The only thing that Mary could do was freak out so she ran straight home. There she found mum and told her all that she had seen. It sure was a spooky night.

Michela Pace Gouder

The Vampire

One Halloween my friends and I were going trick-or-treating in our neighbourhood. Down the street from us was an old deserted house that everyone thought was haunted. We went to the house and rang the bell. There was no answer. We tried the door. It was unlocked, so we entered the house. The door slammed behind us and we were so scared that we starting yelling and screaming. Then we saw something moving behind us and there jumped a vampire.

I jumped half a mile nearly leaving my clothes behind. He wasn’t evil but he scared us to death.

His name was Marty Smarty. He was gentle and quite nice. He told us that he was locked in the house by an evil zombie. My friends left and I was alone in “The Haunted House”. The zombie returned from his visit to his evil sister and with him he brought a little girl.

Her name was Linda. She was only seven years old. She asked him if she could have a glass of water. He poured two, one for him and the other for Linda. He put some poison in one of the glasses.

He got mixed up which was the one with the poison. He drank the one with the poison. Then the zombie was tired and so he had a rest. About half an hour later he slept and when it was time to eat dinner they found out he had died!!!

Rebecca Camilleri

Spooky Halloween

An old deserted house that everyone thought was haunted was in our street. We went to the house and rang the bell. There was no answer. We tried the door. It was unlocked, so we entered the house. The door slammed behind us and my friends tried to do all they could to get out of the house. Poor them, they didn’t manage. I was scared to death, but I didn’t want to show it. My friends tried to open the door, but now it was locked. When I looked at them I saw skinless arms come up from the ground and grab my friends. I screamed and so did my friends. Now I wasn’t just scared, I was terrified. I was left all alone in the dark, spooky house. I had goose bumps all over me and I was shivering like mad. Why didn’t I just obey my mother and not come near this house? Not only that, I’m so stupid I actually went in it. I started walking in the dark, old corridor. I had started the trip, so I must end it some way.

On my very first step inside one room, three huge bats came flying right at me. I hate bats. I’ve been wanting to go in a passage for my whole life, but this wasn’t one I had in mind. It had loads of huge rats and bats. I was totally freaking out. I was walking on my own through the passage and on the way I saw my friends on the floor. Vampires were sucking their blood. I shrieked. I went running through the passage and on the way I saw ghosts. They came right in front of me and I tried to jump over one of them, but got stuck on something. It was invisible string. I realised that it was a joke, so I pulled the costume off.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Marc my brother. Under the rest of the costumes were my brother’s friends. My friends got up from the floor laughing so much they were crying. They played a trick on me. I was kind of embarrassed, but I ended up laughing too. We walked all the way back through the passage to the front door.

As we reached for the knob, it disappeared, but a sign appeared instead. There was written: “Once you enter my haunted house, you must go round it all till you get out.” My friends and I fell on the floor and couldn’t move at all with fright.

Whoever reads this story, please come and save us in the haunted house. We will be waiting for you on Halloween night behind the front door.

Happy Halloween.

Nicole Micallef

Leandra and the Vampire

Leandra was out one dark October night, running in the park. She heard a strange sound coming from a creepy old house and decided to go and investigate. Leandra was scared and crept to the door of the deserted house.

All of a sudden a vampire jumped out and gave her a fright. He was jumping and screaming. The strangest thing about it was that he was wearing a dirty night gown and orange socks and his body was all covered in green saggy gum oozing out on the floor. Leandra jumped half a mile in surprise. It looked as though it was about to eat her up.

The only thing that Leandra would do was to run away and go home. So she ran as fast as she could and when she arrived home she told her parents and they went to the deserted house. There she found that the vampire had vanished and they all returned home and slept. It sure was a spooky night.

Janis Callus

Spooked

One Halloween my friends and I were going trick-or-treating in our neighbourhood. We rang the bell of a house that everyone said was haunted. There was no answer. We tried the door, it was unlocked but we still managed to enter. We heard a man saying: “Mu haaa, haa, ha.” We tried to open the door but it was locked. My friend Nicole started to cry but we all comforted her and told her that we will find a way out.

We went down the corridor. Now and then we saw signs saying: “Keep out, beware and danger.” We noticed that they were written in blood. We just ignored them and continued walking. A skeleton jumped and grabbed my other friend Naomi. She started screaming and we tried to grab her legs but it was too late, she was gone. Nicole and I decided to keep walking.

Suddenly a trap door opened and Nicole fell down the trap. Now I was all alone. I was frightened so I sat down.

A person came out of a door and offered me a tissue. I took it without looking up then I stopped and looked up and saw that the person who offered me the tissue was not a normal person but a vampire! I screamed and ran down the corridor. Then out of the darkness a puzzled ghost came out. I counted under my breath then pounced on the ghost and pulled off the white sheets that were covering it. I gasped as under those sheets there stood a puzzled Naomi! I was so relieved to see her. Then we continued down the corridor.

We heard a scream and someone came running – it was Nicole. We were so happy that we were finally all together again! Our happiness did not last long as suddenly rats and spiders came crawling over us. We were not so afraid but when the headless man jumped out and gave us a fright we practically jumped out of our skins. Now we were very, very scared.

We continued our journey until we came to a room. I saw a lit Jack-o-lantern so I ran and picked it up. Suddenly snakes and bats appeared out of nowhere and attacked us.

There was a torch on the floor so Naomi ran and picked it up. She swung it at the creatures and they all disappeared into thin air.

A trap door suddenly opened and we all fell down. We landed with a thump on the front porch. We were so glad to be out of that dreadful house that we all squealed and started hugging each other and crying with happiness.

We started down the road to our houses. My mum was so worried she had called the police and scolded us for disobeying her.

Martina Callus

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Halloween at Clamus Center

Make Halloween a memorable time this year. Visit one of the Clamus Center outlets and view the vast array of Halloween costumes, masks and lots of other related products.

Clamus Center has three main outlets. One at the heart of Valletta in Melita Street, another at St Julian’s just opposite Bay Street and another outlet at Zejtun (near Homeplus).

Shopping at Clamus Center is an enjoyable experience because of the wide variety of items in stock, unbeatable prices and an efficient and friendly staff. We shall be looking forward to welcoming you in our shops.