Spooky

Halloween was a celebration of the last harvest of the season and the start of winter. It also was a day to honor the dead. Halloween was originally called All Hallows Eve or All Saints Day. Halloween was a tradition where people dressed up in costumes and tried to ward the ghosts away by dancing around bonfires, said Matt Mullen. A man named Samhain said, “The ghost of the dead would return to Earth every 31st of October.” Since then, Halloween has become a yearly tradition.

On Halloween there are two main colors, black and orange. Black represents the night and everything that comes out during the night like bats, black cats, owls, and more. Orange represents the harvest season itself and fall.  Ellie Patterson, a Bowling Green resident, tensed up thinking of the color black, reminds her of death. She said, “The Grim Reaper is all about death and that is one thing that reminds me of Halloween. Regrowth is the meaning of the color orange,” she tells me. She also said when it comes to Halloween it reminds her of fall because of the orange pumpkins that grow every year. As she talked about regrowth and fall she looked very happy and ready for fall to come around. 

People trick or treat because in the past, people who lacked money would go around house to house asking for pastries in exchange to pray for the souls of the homeowners dead relatives, Amanda Onion said on History.com. Children then started taking over that tradition of asking for money and any type of food. Today’s trick or treating took over that and made it into something fun to get candy. Ellie said, “People trick or treat for the fun of it not knowing why and how it came about. It is kind of a tradition for children to trick or treat in honor of the ones that struggled.” Ellie furrowed her eyebrows over the fact people don’t understand the concept of Halloween. 

Halloween is often scary for some people and for Patterson.  “Haunted houses are one thing that makes Halloween even more scary. Scary movies are the best, I can literally watch them all the time.” She was excited talking about scary movies. . She said, “The grim reaper and ghost are things I think about on Halloween because they are meant to scare humans. Witches are spooky, ‘they come out on Halloween But it is something fun.”

Ellie said that Halloween is “the most wonderful time of the year.” Halloween is one of her favorite holiday traditions. Ellie said, “Even though I watch Tim Burton movies all the time, Halloween gives me an excuse to watch his movies.” With a big smile on her face, laughing, Ellie said, feeling when walking into your home, nice and as pretty as fall.” She said that Halloween makes her feel witchy, excited, and ready. 

She feels like Halloween was superior in the past. “It was always spooky and definitely more fun. Now it’s just Tarzan and Spiderman walking around. What fun is that?” she asked me. “Most people don’t understand why we have Halloween.” While she was telling me this she looked down with frustration at the fact that no one knows why they do the things they do on Halloween. “I personally think if we have to take history we should learn more about history like Halloween and so much more,” Ellie said. Why are people doing things when they don’t really know why they are doing it? People do need to learn more history than just politics and war because there is so much more out there to learn like the history of Halloween. 

Halloween is a tradition that is supposed to be scary and somewhat fun. Over the years so much has changed over the fact that people think they trick or treat for candy and dress up to have fun. Now they’ve started making more costumes from Disney, and other tv shows that aren’t even scary movies. The point of Halloween is “to ward the ghost away” because they come around at the end of October. Even though this is an urban legend, a story that isn’t real that people believe in for a long period of time, it became a tradition to “ward” the ghost off on this day. I agree that it would be more fun if we still did the same as before because today’s Halloween isn’t as fun. 

Audrey Smith 

Halloween 

https://www.history.com/topics/halloween 

Photographer-Ellie Patterson