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Get out your skeletons and your pumpkins and all things that are scary, because Halloween is right around the corner. In some people’s eyes, this is the best holiday of the year, and on this day, you’ll see that both children and adults alike dressed like ghouls and witches and anything else that’s not their normal clothes.

On this day too, there are parties and treats to eat, it’s basically a ton of fun wrapped into a day for all things that are dead. Seems like a strange thing to celebrate doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t always a day of parties, candy and costumes that we think of today. No, Halloween was a very serious observance of the dead. Want to find out more? Read on.

It is believed that the first celebration of Halloween began in Celtic Ireland in the 5th century BC. The festival they held on November 1 was called Samhain, which was their New Year celebration, and also a day of the dead. For them, summer officially ended on October 31, which marked the death of a season. They believed that all of the souls that had died that year were allowed to enter the land of the dead on that day. On this day of the dead, people were frightened of the ghosts that wandered the streets. So, to blend in with the ghosts, people would dress up like the ghosts to fool them. This is where the idea of costumes came from.

The name of the holiday did not come from the Irish Celts, however. In order to honor their dead, the Catholic Church adopted this day to honor their saints. The holiday became known as All Hallows Eve which has been changed over time to be called Halloween.

As for the whole trick or treating custom, that came from England. On November 2, they celebrated All Souls Day where poor Christians would walk from house to house asking for a special food called soul cakes. With every cake they received, they would say a prayer for dead loved ones to help them get to heaven faster. This became a service for the poor to get food and for dead loved ones to get prayers.

So, it seems that a combination of three cultures and beliefs led us to the Halloween that we know and love today. People took this day to heart, but now we seem to celebrate it for fun. And oh, what fun it is!