Halloween is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31.  It is a fun holiday when children will dress in their favorite costumes and go out trick-or-treating for candies.  This article examines the origin of Halloween, and provides some ideas for Halloween gifts. 

Halloween has its origin in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain.  The festival of Samhain was a celebration of the end of the harvest season, and could be regarded as the Celtic New Year.  The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundary between the alive and the dead disappeared, and the dead became dangerous for the living by causing illness, damaged crops, and other problems.  Costumes and masks were worn at the festival to mimic the evil spirits or placate them.

The name “Halloween” is shortened from All Hallows’ Eve as it is the eve of “All Hallows’ Day”, which is now known as All Saints’ Day. Although All Saints’s Day now occurs one day after Halloween, the Celts started every day at sunset of the night before.  Hence Samhain became “the evening of All Hallows”. Traditional activities for Halloween include costume parties, carving pumpkins to make Jack-o-lanterns (carved pumpkin lit by a candle inside), trick-or-treating, or reading scary stories. Irish immigrants carried versions of these tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Traditional characters of Halloween include ghosts, witches, vampires, bats, black cats, goblins, skeletons, pumpkin-man, scarecrow and fictional figures such as Dracula. Halloween gifts often include one of these characters for the festivities.

The Halloween gift basket is a great gift for your favorite trick-or-treater.  Most Halloween gift baskets have a Jack-O-Lantern pail since Jack-O-Lantern is the symbol of Halloween. One popular gift basket includes popcorn, candy corn (popular Halloween candy), other Halloween candies, a plush black cat dressed as a witch, a pumpkin carving kit for recipients to make Jack-O-Lantern, and a pumpkin flash light for safety during trick-or-treating. This gift is truly a must have for Halloween!Another version of Halloween gift basket comes with a Halloween puzzle for the kids, in addition to plenty of treats.  For more dramatic effects, you can send a Count Dracula gift basket. This basket consists of a plush black bear dressed as Dracula holding on to his favorite chocolate covered pumpkins. The basket also contains many other treats, including Bat Bits of yogurt pretzels, munchies, bubble gums, shortbread cookies, chocolate toffees and peanut butter pretzel nuggets. This gift basket is sure to bring everyone into the Halloween spirit.

For your college students and loved ones away from home, sending them a Halooween care package or gift box will remind them of the fun of Halloween while they were at home. A popular care package consists of a 14″ black cat in a pumpkin outfit and lots of all-American favorite Halloween treats in a trick-or-treat bag. Inside the bag are candy corn, chocolate ghosts, microwave buttern popcorn, Halloween peanut butter filled pumpkin, and Halloween candies. Sending the care package is a good way to let your recipients know you care about them.

To share the Halloween spirit, You can leave a gift tote on your neighbors door step, put it on a coworker’s desk at work, or send it to your favorite goblin far away. Inside the gift bag is a plush ghost, miniature marshmallow pumpkins, candies, peanut butter cup, miniature candy treats bags, cookies, and 2 creepy crawlers gummy worms.

The Halloween candy cake is another unique gift.  The candy cake is a collection of candy pumpkins, chocolate fudge filled ghosts, Twix bars, Halloween pumpkins, miniature chocolates, ghost peeps, candy corn filled coffins, and miniature candy bars.

Halloween is about witches and black cat.  Your little trick or treater may dream of creating hexes and potions. A popular Halloween gift bag is filled with Halloween candies, marshmallow Peeps ghosts, Halloween glow stick, miniature candy bars, miniature snickers bars, cookies, candy treats, microwave popcorn, and potions bottle with powdered candy. An adorable Halloween teddy bears is dressed as a witch and ready to fly away in her broomstick to deliver the delicious treats to your special goblin.

The little witch may also dream of her black cat.  The singing plush black cat is another great gift.  This Spooky little Cat delivers his own version of the pop hit “Spooky Little Cat Like You”.  Ghosts, ghouls and goblins alike will love this lively tune and this spooky kitty!

In conclusion, Halloween is for fun activities and candy treats. Send a Halloween gift basket, care package, gift box, or a singing black cat to your favorite trick-or-treats, and they will remember the fun and love that you share. 

Kate S is the CEO of Gift Basket for All, LLC.  You can shop at her website, http://www.giftbasketforall.com, for sensational gift baskets for all occasions, including anniversary, holidays, new baby, birthday, corporate events, get well, sympathy.  

For products information on Halloween Gifts, visit:http://www.giftbasketforall.com/page/1333483 

Pumpkins, gory costumes, spiders and E-numbered-up kids hammering on your door. Are you ready for this year’s Halloween-fest? The supermarkets have been since the last Bank Holiday in August, so what’s it all about?

Many people exist quite happily without ever acknowledging Halloween. However, most of us surround ourselves with spooks, ghouls, demons, magic and spells, wizards and witches and the living dead every year because of an ancient pagan festival called Samhain and All Saints’ Day from the Christian calendar.

While we are munching on pumpkin pie and bobbing apples dressed as zombies we may want to remember the Celts who 2,000 years ago would have been throwing the bones of slaughtered livestock onto bonfires and wearing masks in order to calm evil spirits. This festival traditionally celebrated the end of harvest time and the beginning of the Celtic New Year on November 1.

In later years the Christian church began marking All Saints’ Day at the same time of year. Their belief was that souls were released from purgatory on All Hallow’s Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day, for 48 hours. This was parallel to the pagan belief that the spirits of the dead could spill into the land of the living on this particular night.

Over time, ideas from both festivals merged and became known as Hallowe’en in mainstream culture. The pagan and Christian religions continue to celebrate with their own separate events too.

Halloween is marked around the world in similar form, from Mexico’s Day of the Dead to China‘s Ghost Festival, and increasingly as a result of the influence of American culture in areas such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Europe.

Since the Americans hijacked Halloween it has become an excuse for any kind of themed event for adults as well as kids: from Halloween club nights to midnight screenings of horror films at cinemas and spooky TV specials.

If you fancy a night of dastardly devilry, there are plenty of events on around the country. The All Hallow’s Eve Ball at The Crypt, near Chancery Lane in London, is being held in aid of UNICEF on Friday October 31. Food is being provided by The Bleeding Heart restaurants in the rooms where King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon feasted on their wedding day.

For those interested in exploring the pagan roots of Halloween, the Caduceus Pagan and Witchcraft Halloween Bash at Conway Hall, Holborn in London could be just the ticket. The changing seasons will be celebrated with dance, song, drama and ritual on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 October.

Nicely coinciding with school half term holidays, Bristol Zoo is running a series of family activities from October 24 to November 5. These include an interactive trail with residence witch, Ninny Noo; a pumpkin carving competition; and a Halloween Parade with prizes for the scariest costumes.

Along the country’s heritage railways, ghoulish ghost trains will be steaming ahead for a range of family and adult seasonal rides. Railways to search for include Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway, Mid-Norfolk Railway, Darlington Railway Centre and Museum, South Tynedale Railway, Kent & East Sussex Railway, Bodmin & Wenford Railway, Foxfield Steam Railway and North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

The Spooky Sleepover at the London Bridge Experience invites guests to join the Society of Paranormal Investigation and spend the night of Saturday November 15 soaking up the unexplained in a historic setting. This special event is in aid of St John Ambulance and is for over-18s only.

If you can’t face going out in public on All Hallow’s Eve, you can always get decorating and create your own haunted house. Put on your fangs and fake blood, get some Halloween spirit and enjoy a good old fashioned fancy dress knees up. You should frighten off the youth beating down your door at least.

The most terrifying day of the year is approaching bringing along a tradition that comprises ancient beliefs that nowadays are mixed with the fun of the tricks and treats that characterize this day. Globalization has incorporated to Halloween other traditions as well, such as those coming from All Saints Day and the Day of the Dead that are celebrated during November 1st and 2nd in several countries outside de USA.

However, nobody can resist the mixed emotions that come with Halloween no matter if adults and children believe or not in witches, ghosts, vampires, mommies and other monsters and creatures coming from the grave. The Halloween night is time for children to have fun, but because there is a child inside the heart of all of us, do not miss the opportunity to celebrate Halloween like a goblin, or perhaps a ghost?

Holding a Halloween festival at home is a nice idea and you can even award the best costume with a special candy treat or a creepy bottle of wine if you invite adults to share this spooky moment with you. With a little of imagination you can create quick Halloween crafts to decorate your home, while others are available at party supplies stores or online costumes and accessories shops.

Make sure that your home look creepy, but if your budget is short, remember the old ghosts’ trick and cover your furniture with white sheets and put a few others hanging here and there, including one covering an electric fan, if you have one, so it can “mysteriously fly” sometime during the party time. Sheets are cheap decorations as you can use those available for your bedrooms, and remember that sheets will not only protect your furniture but also will make your home look abandoned, the ideal climate for terrifying games.

Naturally, make sure to have enough pumpkins all over your house, whether real pumpkin fruits or those made of plastic and other material. Whenever it is possible a safe, put a candle inside the pumpkin or buy those decorative pumpkins that already com with it. Of course, you can use candles to illuminate all your rooms, but get those with different shapes and color including black, purple, orange, red and white and burn incenses close to them.

If you cannot use candles, cover your bulbs with red cellophane paper screens, but be cautious because high wattage bulbs can burn the paper. Create your own decoration with black and white cardboard cutting it with the form of vampires, witches, skulls, ghosts and pumpkins that later can be decorated with candies and give to your guests as a Halloween favor or souvenir.

An easy way to cover the walls, corners, doors, and windows of your home with spider webs is reinforcing a piece of black wool to decorate each place. Black and orange are the Halloween colors; put them everywhere, including orange flowers in black vases to create a funeral atmosphere. Round your Halloween decoration with accessories that you can find in specialty stores such as mooncostumes, at which you can find witch hats, spiders, brooms.

What does Halloween represent? better known as the eve of All Saints’ Day. Halloween in Western countries is about ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and the supernatural.

In Britain, Halloween is associated with children playing ‘Trick or Treat‘ a game where children dress up and visit neighbours’ houses threatening to play practical jokes on the inhabitants if not rewarded with sweets or money. All harmless fun of course.

In recent years, the number of local events organised to “celebrate” Halloween has shot up. Also, merchandise is readily available and many families decorate their homes as they do at Christmas.

Where did this phenomenon come from anyway, the United States? We spoke to Kit Bennett from American website Amazing Moms who pleads guilty on all counts.

Kit says, “It’s huge, I would say it’s right up there with Christmas for kids. We as always have gone over the top,” she said. However, Kit, herself a Grandmother and teacher said she has noticed a change in the United States and people have become more safety conscious.

“How we deal with it has changed. It’s actually getting a little lower key. The kids love to dress up and have the candy but we don’t trick or teat so much now. Our children go to shopping plazas now and go store to store to get candy. Many schools are no longer able to celebrate Halloween but they’ll call it a Harvest Party.”

Kit also told us that some children are banned from attending Halloween events and have accused other children of worshipping evil. Oh dear, this sounds like this yearly activity of fun is all becoming a bit too serious. She also went on to say that the event is becoming a big religious activity in the United States with some people not celebrating it for that reason alone.

However, she did want to point out that she and her family do spend time together on October 31st carving pumpkins and enjoying the whole social occasion.

The most popular Halloween costumes in the United States are a Princess costume for the girls and a Superhero for the boys – again different from the UK where it’s a Witch or Dracula.

In the traditional sense Halloween, or Hallowe’en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31st. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting “haunted houses”, carving Jack-o’-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. It’s also believed that Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of the Western world, most commonly in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Japan, New Zealand, and occasionally in parts of Australia. Plus, in Sweden the All Saints’ official holiday takes place on the first Saturday of November.

The most recognisable symbol is the carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, this is one of Halloween’s most prominent symbols in America, and is commonly called a jack-o-lantern. Originating in Europe, these lanterns were first carved from a turnip or rutabaga. Believing that the head was the most powerful part of the body containing the spirit and the knowledge, the Celts used the “head” of the vegetable to frighten off any superstitions. The name jack-o’-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking old farmer. He tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the tree trunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of a hollowed turnip.