Morphsuits are perhaps one of the most popular fancy dress crazes around at the moment. In the UK they are produced by a Scottish company (also known as Morphsuits) founded by two brothers and their flatmate in 2009, and are based on Japanese zentai suits (their name coming from the word zenshin taitsu, meaning “full body tights”). Visually distinctive, great at hiding your identity and an excellent ice breaker, if you’re looking for a unique fancy dress costume then look no further than a morphsuit. But what are the pros and cons of such an usual getup? I’m glad you asked…

Pros

• Drinking

As well as allowing you to see out of them, you are also able to drink and even smoke through a morphsuit. However, there are a few things to bear in mind if you plan on drinking heavily. At a basic level, drinking a lot can make your suit damp, which can be uncomfortable. Additionally, drinking a lot of any liquid inevitably leads to you needing the loo, something that requires you to take pretty much the entire suit off. With excretion still in mind, it’s also probably not a good idea to get too wasted if the drinks you’re imbibing are alcoholic: you really don’t want to throw up in one of these.

• Anonymity

While you can see out of a morphsuit perfectly, nobody can see you (unless you have a very, very distinctive silhouette, of course). This can give you newfound confidence and open up a variety of social opportunities. Thinks of all the pranks you could play, flash mobs you could take part in and attractive strangers you could approach with an air of fearless, brightly-coloured mystery.

• Unique

Despite the sheer number of them that have been sold, morphsuits are still relatively rare as far as fancy dress costumes go, and chances are if you go to a party in one you’re likely to stand out. If you really want to make a stir, have a group of you go out in them in either the same or different coloured suits; you’re bound to get plenty of looks.

Cons

• Bodily functions

This is probably the only con of a morphsuit. You can quite happily drink and smoke through them as the fabric is fully breathable, but should you need to go to the loo for any particular reason then you may be in for a spot of bother. However, luckily for you the zip on a morphsuit is located at the head and thus easily accessible; it’s just slightly annoying getting into and out of them!

Eli McConner is still deciding which morphsuit to buy (although he admits that he’s leaning towards a tuxedo one).

As fall officially makes its debut and the days grow shorter, the calendar’s pages quickly inch forward to one of the country’s most popular holidays for both children and adults, always made even better by the fun, spooky, and downright weird Halloween gadgets that have already begun showing up on store shelves and online.

One of the best parts of the Halloween season is decorating, and that’s where you’ll find most of your hot Halloween gadgets. To turn your home into a true haunted house – or if you want to scare Trick or Treaters on Halloween night – cloak the area in thick fog. Let a demonic clown, the devil himself, or the Grim Reaper spew the fog and catch everyone off guard. Check out the affordable fog devices by clicking here.

Light the path to your front door with skulls that glow and make haunting sounds. All you have to do is stick the stakes in your yard, and your spooky effects are in place. Add a thrashing, moaning zombie to your front yard, and you’re certain to scare your Halloween visitors.

Prefer a more traditional, fun path to your front door? Nothing says Halloween like pumpkins, and you can find them on stakes just like the skulls.

Once inside your home, no room is sacred, including the bathroom. If you want to give visitors to your bathroom a scare, go for a perennial favorite: The electronic shower curtain – well, the bloody serial killer shower curtain that, upon sensing movement or sound in the bathroom, goes into action. A woman’s scream is accompanied by the theme to Psycho. The shower curtain itself appears blood-spattered with an image of a man stabbing his innocent victim.

Keep up with the downright frightening atmosphere in your bathroom by installing a scary Halloween toilet paper roll holder. Every time a guest pulls on the toilet paper, they’ll be taken aback by moans, blood-curling screams, and howling. All you need are a couple of batteries to keep up the scares.

Want to create your own Halloween decorations or just carve your pumpkin? Check out the Electric Pumpkin Carving Knife. Add some horror to your office at home or at work with a skull USB hub. The skull looks almost real and features four high speed USB ports, perfect for staying connected while freaking out your coworkers or family members.

Plug mini-speakers into that USB port, made just for the season. The black pumpkin Halloween mini-speakers with glowing eyes are portable, allowing you to share your audio wherever you have access to a USB port.

Halloween has taken on a whole new meaning for today’s generations. High and low tech gadgets make creating a spooky atmosphere even easier and more fun. The great news is many of the hot Halloween gadgets for this year are affordable, so you don’t have to worry about breaking the bank. But, to make the most of Halloween this year, start looking for your hot Halloween gadgets early.

Frank Anderson is a techie blogger.  He also works with web hosting and other tech related industries.

Halloween is in a few weeks time and if you are not a fan of fancy dress Halloween parties why not have a film night with friends at home.  There are ghost and vampire films a plenty that will make a great entertainment for a Halloween night.  There are some classic zombie, vampire, ghost classics that will never age or go out of fashion.  Dust of your DVD shelves, or maybe have a look through your video cassettes, you sure are going to dig out some good horror films to watch.

When it comes to vampire film nothing can beat the story about count Dracula and there is no other vampire as popular as he is.  Set in the Carpathian Mountains the story of Dracula dates back to the 19th century when Bram Stoker’s novel was first published.  Ever since his vampire story has been an inspiration for many theatrical and film adaptations.  One of the well known film adaptations is the Francis Ford Copula adaptation from 1992.  You sure will find a good copy of a Dracula film if you like the idea of a classic vampire story on Halloween.  If you fancy a little bit of 90s style horror why not watch Interview with a Vampire.  Starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, this film tops the vampire film list.  A thought provoking story full of thrills and suspense will make you a good company on a Halloween night.  A mixture of comedy and horror, The Lost Boys is a another classic vampire film from the late 80s.  The film tells the story of two brothers who move to California and end up fighting a gang of teenage vampires.  Teenage vampire films existed long before Twilight and may even be a much better entertainment for this year’s Halloween.  Fiction hasn’t told us any stories of friendly vampires but we certainly know that friendly ghosts exist. One of the sweetest is the well know Casper The Friendly Ghost.  It doesn’t have to be a vampire horror for your Halloween night.  The animated cartoons about Casper were the base for the 1995 feature film starring Christina Ricci.  It is a story full of funny and emotional moments, and will make a great film to watch on Halloween.

You may want to check some online film reviews for more ideas about good horror films to watch on Halloween.  Check out also for horror film soundtracks to choose music for your Halloween film night.

This article is by Review Centre, a website with consumer generated reviews on all kinds of products and services including films, books and music.

Halloween gives us all a great excuse to have a lot of fun and it can be one of the best nights of the year if you make some effort. However choosing what to do with the night is one of the biggest challenges. In this article we’re going to look at a few of the best options and how to best prepare yourself for them.

Trick or Treating

If you have kids then this is an absolute must for Halloween as it’s great fun – gets you out and about and gets your kids lots of sweets (though rationing is definitely advised). If you’re going to go trick or treating then everyone will need costumes and something to carry all their loot in – a pumpkin, basket or a sac work well. Make sure your children go out supervised and make sure the adults dress up to – as this adds to the fun for all.

If you want to go trick or treating then it’s a great idea to spend some time making your own costumes and your kid’s costumes. Find out what they’d like to go as and find a good DIY guide online – we’ve provided some of our own to get you started. This way you get some good productive time and a great costume at the end of it.

Halloween Parties

Whether you want to host or just go to one Halloween parties are a great way to have a really memorable night – providing they are done well of course. If you’re going to one then it’s a good idea to dress up as this adds to the atmosphere of the party. If you’re going to be hosting your own then we’d recommend you go all out with decorations and activities. We’ve compiled a few guides on this subject – depending on your guest ages, so check them out and get planning. If you go “all out” on your Halloween party it will be a brilliant event to remember.

Halloween Costume Competitions

Halloween costume competitions have become increasingly popular in recent years with clubs and pubs trying to draw more people in on Halloween. A huge part of this has become the fancy dress competitions – some of which will offer free drinks others cash. These can make a really good night out and encourage people to put a lot of effort into their costumes. If you’ve got some people to head out with you can all work on themed costumes and try and outdo each other in the scariness department. The added cash incentives mean that people put a lot more effort into their costumes which makes the night a lot more fun.

Scary Movie Night

Well this might not be the most memorable of nights but it can still be great fun if you sit in a darkened room watching the scariest films you can think of (twilight is not scary btw). We’d recommend the Exorcist and other classics like the Thing, the Ring and Dawn of the Dead to get your heart thumping. If you can dress up your room with some candles and themed decorations that’s just an added bonus.

For the more adventurous amongst you……

A séance

A séance lets you talk to the dead (supposedly) and you can hire someone to hold a séance at your house without it costing you an arm and a leg. In terms of a memorable night its likely to be one you’ll never forget and if you make a dark atmosphere for your guest it will be an incredible night to remember. Be warned though a séance can be a little morbid and slightly dark so make sure you don’t take it too seriously.

A Ouija board night

The Ouija board is a great spooky night and it will definitely be one to remember forever. A Ouija board was originally a board game (no joke) but thanks to some scary films it has become an icon of all things dark and spooky. Playing this in a darkened room with some friends and some wine is a great way to terrify yourselves on Halloween.

There is a wide variation when it comes to “normal” reactions to Halloween from little ones. Some of them can take even the most gruesome zombie handing them a sucker in stride while others burst into tears at the sight of a jack-o-lantern. If your child falls on the more sensitive side of the spectrum, don’t worry, it’s perfectly normal and chances are good that one day they’ll be knocking you over to be first in line for the haunted house. Until then, here are five ways that you can keep Halloween enjoyable and not too overwhelming for your little ones.

1. Stay out of the Halloween Aisles! Between the creepy decorations, gruesome costumes and motion-activated sound makers, the Halloween aisle can be a fright (even for some grown-ups!). Leave your child at home while you shop or take advantage of online stores to buy your costumes and decorations. Not only will you avoid stressing out your child, keeping them out of the stores can help you keep commercialism out of the holidays for now.
2. Don’t insist on scary costumes. Instead, look for ones that your child can use in pretend play as they work to build their confidence. Your child can have a lot of fun pretending to be a brave firefighter or police officer, a clever, magical fairy or princess or a helpful doctor or nurse. Pretend play with costumes can help children develop strong social skills and self confidence, so don’t be in a rush to put them away after the holiday ends.
3. If you have older kids, find a balance between their needs and your little one’s. It can be quite frightening for a small child to see their beloved older brother or sister turn into a scary witch or monster. Talk to your older child about your younger one’s needs and ways to be sensitive. Ask them not to try to scare their younger sibling with spooky noises or surprises until they are older and ready for such things. Emphasize that you enjoy seeing your older child have fun but you also know that they are old enough to be respectful of their sibling’s needs.
4. Look for daytime opportunities to trick-or-treat. If you can’t trick or treat during the day, try to do it as early as possible before darkness sets in. Do encourage your child to say trick or treat and walk themselves, but if they aren’t ready this year, don’t push it. Be firm but polite in asking others not to try and scare your child or invade their space. If you run into adults that don’t seem to respect your requests, feel free to walk away. Your child’s sense of feeling safe and respected are much more important than some adult getting a kick out of scaring a kid.
5. Think of creative ways to make Halloween upbeat and fun. Many children’s museums, book/toy stores and libraries have Halloween activities that are designed to be just the right pace for the younger set. If you can’t find a suitable one in your area, why not invite a few of your child’s classmates or friends over for a not-too-scary Halloween tea party or dance? Instead of creepy, you can let the children make goofy pumpkin faces and friendly ghosts as party favours and dance to some silly Halloween tunes.

Co-authors Jacob and Carol Maslow enjoy sharing their experience and expertise on children, toys and the importance of play. In addition to raising five young children, Carol works as a therapist specializing in helping developmentally delayed preschoolers integrate with their classmates. Jacob works at Today’s Concept, where parents can find classic toys, included the highly regarded Melissa and Doug brand of toys and role play costume sets.

There is a reason that many kids say that Halloween is their favorite holiday and it’s not just because of all the candy. Halloween is a wonderfully creative event that lets all of us indulge our imaginations and have fun with the scarier, ickier side of life. Take advantage of the spirit of Halloween to have some creative fun with your kids!

Find a Costume that Does Double Duty

Why limit costumes to just Halloween? Look for costumes that your child can incorporate into his or her fantasy play all year long. While costumes based on popular characters are fine, you’ll get more play value from costumes that allow your child the inject their own personality into their pretend play. Have fun getting into character with your child and playing pretend games, such as fire rescue team, animal hospital, enchanted forest and super hero squad. Don’t worry about “spoiling” the holiday by letting your child wear their costume early, most children will have even more fun trick-or-treating as a character that they’ve “rehearsed”!

Make Your Own Decorations

Instead of shelling out money for store-bought decorations, why not turn it into a crafts project for the whole family? You can make bats, spiders, ghosts, mummies and a host of other spooky characters out of easy to find household items. A quick web search for “Halloween crafts” will yield a wealth of ideas that you can adapt to suit your family’s taste, materials on hand and your child’s ability. While most children can’t handle knives safely for pumpkin carving, they can still create their own jack-o-lanterns using paint or by sticking in objects Mr. Pumpkinhead-style.

Get to Know Your Neighborhood

An unfortunate side effect of our busy modern lives is that many of us no longer know our neighbors and neighborhoods as well as we used to. Remedy that by devoting one or more afternoons this October to taking walking tours with your child around your neighborhood to see all of the wonderful decorations! Take a minute to greet and speak to any neighbors you see to model good social skills to your child. You can even help your child make somebody’s day by writing short notes to the homeowners of particularly well-decorated homes expressing their admiration and delight.

Have a Monster Dance Party

Make a playlist of classic Halloween music such as “The Monster Mash”, “One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater” and “Ghostbusters”, clear some space for a dance-floor and let everyone get all of their wiggles out. For added fun, you can videotape the festivities so that distant family members and friends can enjoy your dance moves, too! (Be prepared for your kids to want to watch it over and over)

You can use a online music service such as Spotify to find free playlists of kid-friendly Halloween music or borrow kid’s music CDs from your local library.

Turn Ordinary Candy into Something Extraordinary

The morning after Halloween, many parents are left wondering how on earth they’ll get rid of all their kid’s loot. Instead of doling it out piece by piece, get creative and find ways to incorporate it into delicious baked goods or decorations for Thanksgiving and Christmas. You can find many recipes for Halloween candy cakes, cupcakes, brownies and more online. There are also templates and instructions for building gingerbread houses, candy wreaths and more that can be constructed using Halloween candy.

Go Ahead and Smash Those Pumpkins

There is nothing more wonderful to most children than getting the chance to throw an old jack-o-lantern off a balcony or launch it from a homemade catapult. Do take care to do it safely and involve your children in the clean-up, but don’t worry too much about giving them the wrong message by letting them do something so destructively messy once a year. Kids love the chance to do something that would normally be considered “naughty” with their parent’s permission!

Note: Some smaller or more sensitive children can be upset by this kind of activity. Use your best judgment and if surprise tears occur, comfort your child but don’t worry too much about scarring them for life. As long as you handle the situation with sensitivity and respect for their feelings, they will be fine.

Have a ghoulishly good time this Halloween with your children and enjoy the memories for decades to come!

Authors Jacob and Carol Maslow are the proud parents of five preteen children who have learned from experience that real toys don’t require batteries. Carol works as a therapist, specializing in integrating developmentally delayed preschoolers with their classmates. Jacob works at online retailer Today’s Concept, where parents can find the classic Melissa and Doug Toys.

Having a few friends around for Halloween or a full blown Halloween party is a great way for everyone to let their hair down and have some fun. However, Halloween is also about making things a little creepy for everyone too and we want to give you some guidance on throwing an actually scary Halloween party.

In this brief piece we’re going to cover some themes, some activities, some design and some other fun things to add in starting with costumes.

Now if you want to have a horror night then you are going to need to make sure EVERYONE dresses up. Having a few people in jeans and t-shirts detracts from the terror inducing ambience we are going to be striving for so make sure everyone understands that when you send out the invites. With your own Halloween costume you want to go for something creepy and not simply straight out of the box. This way you will be able to play the perfect evil host or hostess. Because of this it’s a good idea to go with something that fits the host role – so a vampire count/countess, an Igor (servant to the evil doers of the world) or a Supreme all powerful sorcerer/sorceress.

Now we want to focus on the decorations – we’ve got a whole guide for this for children you can find here….

But if we’re going to go for something really scary we are going to have to adapt the pointers we gave out there to suit a more adult themed party.

First off we can create a more ethereal room by investing in a cheap smoke machine or some dry ice. We’d recommend the smoke machine as dry ice is dangerous stuff but can be thrown in a cauldron in a corner without too much hassle required. This will give you a good spooky feeling room very quickly.

Secondly we are going to want some candles – and preferably lots. We want to light them and then dribble them by turning them in different directions so the wax runs off. Then put them out so they are all ready for your Halloween party. This plus the smoke will give you a really dark atmosphere so that will do nicely.

Other than that we are going to want our standard darkened room with very low level lighting and lots of fake cobwebs etc. strewn about the place. If you can it’s also great to cover your furniture in dust sheets and move the TV out of the room so it feels more like a scary house and less like your living room.

It’s a good idea to think about all the rooms you’re guests are likely to enter and even better to prepare a few nasty surprises for your guests in all the rooms. A firm classic is the dropping spider behind the toilet door – guaranteed to terrify at least the first person to enter the room. You can get one of these from a huge variety of shops or online so pick one up and have some fun with your guests. Other great options are a dead hand coming out of a cupboard and a skeleton in the closet – make sure your guests hang up their own coats of course J. We’ll explore frightening your friends more closely in another instalment so now we’ll finally turn to some activities.

One of the best and most classic Halloween activities is the Ouija board. Interestingly this actually was originally a board game you could buy from retailers – its legend being largely thanks to a slew of films. Nevertheless it makes a great scary activity that can be very terror inspiring – despite really only being subconscious movements (or so we’ll claim). Play it at midnight by candlelight for some added horror and have fun.

Other great activities include blindfolded “food” tasting, apple bobbing (with suitably nasty surprises mixed in and the ever popular scary story or scary movie. Whatever you do have some fun and don’t get too scared.

Whilst many of us see Halloween as a non-holiday it can be a great time for your kids even if for us it’s mainly a mess and more sweets than we’d generally like our children to have! However making an effort for Halloween is something many of us don’t know where to begin with. So with that in mind we thought we’d put together a quick guide to making a spooky Halloween for your kids.

Firstly – We need decorations.

Decorating your house is a great way to begin to increase the spook factor of your Halloween and you can begin simply by buying a few easy props to decorate and turning the lights down.

First things first we’re going to get the houses ambience correct. Close all the curtains and dim all the lights. If you don’t have dimmable lights then you should invest in some Halloween themed low glow lights so that you can have a minimal amount of light in the main party room. This will give the party a nice dark atmosphere. If you’re kids aren’t too young then dribbled candles make a fantastic cheap alternative. With the lighting done we can now move to the more mainstream decorations. If you’re looking for standardised Halloween decorations then you can get these from a variety of shops online and offline in the run up to Halloween. If you decide to take this route then dropping spiders, skeletons and fake cobwebs are a must as these will give your party a great dark feel. If you want to take an alternative route though you can make much some of your own decorations. This makes a good family activity day but may spoil some of the scariness.

The easiest decorations to make are large spider webs which can be made with pipe cleaners and cotton wool or just large pieces of cotton wool. All you need to do is stretch out the cotton as much as possible so that it forms a thin web like sheet. Then drape this artfully around your house and hey presto – cheap spooky spider webs. Secondly we can make our very own scary monster by stuffing some old clothes and using either a fake skeleton or a pumpkin for a head – then we can use fake blood (Or food colouring) to drench the shirt in blood . Thirdly we can get a fake coffin from a local Halloween shop and use this as a table centrepiece – covering it with fake spiders, cobwebs and other ghastly delights. Finally no Halloween would be complete without pumpkin carving and this is a great family activity that is relatively cheap and will provide you with soup nice soup material. There are lots of other ways to make your own decorations but these are some of the simplest and most fun. With that in mind we now turn to your other party necessities.

Secondly – We need activities.

Having a selection of activities helps your party stick in the minds of all your guests – not just the children. Top of the list has to be a scary story. This is free entertainment and goes down very well. You can find age appropriate spooky stories for free online or buy a book of them. To set up the activity turn out all the lights and read the story by a single candle or using a torch to light up your face. This will make the story a lot scarier and provides the perfect opportunity for an accomplice to jump out at the children at an appropriate point for added terror. Secondly we always have the age old favourite of blindfolded “food” eating. This is another easy one with peeled grapes making great eyes, thick spaghetti making worms and cooked mince in sauce making great brains. There are hundreds of things you can claim food is so experiment and have fun. Finally there is the ever traditional apple bobbing – with a twist. Amongst the apples you want to put scary things. Floating fake spiders, shriveled brains (store bought plastic of course) and make the water red with food colouring. There are hundreds of great Halloween activities and these are some of our favourites.

Finally – We need food and music

Finally you want to make sure that you have an appropriate sound track for your Halloween and that you have some scary food. The simplest way to make the food is to use traditional party food and label it as something else – this won’t fool your older guests for a second but it will your kids. Also make your own punch and make it a deep dark red colour with things floating in it – preferably Halloween themed sweets.

Finally your soundtrack for the evening can set the tone for your whole party so you’ll want to spend some time on it. If you want to go for standard Halloween songs then there are plenty available from Michael Jackson’s Thriller to John Carpenter’s Halloween. You can buy some good Halloween mixes complete with scary intervals but making your own can often be more fun.

Lastly remember to act the part throughout the evening and have a great Halloween…………Boo!

The 10 Scariest Films of All Time make for a great Halloween affair. It’s not just about the screams – plenty of movies can give a cheap thrill. The 10 scariest films of all time are all about establishing a haunting, terrifying atmosphere that will linger in your dreams for years to come. Not for the weak of heart, here are our 10 scariest films of all time.

1. Silence Of The Lambs
   (1991) – More realist than many of the movies in this list, The Silence of the Lambs delves into the crime genre with more flair than has been seen since. One of the many films on this list that was originally considered a box office failure, but it’s popularity grew exponentially from its pure excellence.
   
2. The Shining
   (1980) – If you’re a horror fan, and you haven’t seen The Shining, see it now. The Shining is better known for the Steven King book, but the movie tackles horror in its own uniquely terrifying way.
   
3. Alien Anthology [Blu-ray]
   (1979) – The movie that spawned an entire franchise. Before the Alien vs Preditor prequels, Alien was a landmark horror film that stunned both critics and audiences with its sci-fi undertones and terrifying horror scenes. It was a tremendous success in sales, but its popularity has died off after so many sequels.
   
4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
   (1974) – An all-time horror classic, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is still embedded in popular consciousness. It’s 2003 remake failed to capture the same audience, and this remains a landmark film in many ways.
   
5. Paranormal Activity
   (2007) – Paranormal Activity is one of the most uniquely horrifying films ever released. The fact that it was produced for such a low budget (less than $200,000 USD) just makes the movie even more impressive. Quiet and brilliantly timed horror.
   
6. Nightmare on Elm Street
   (1984) – One of the landmark slasher films, Nighmare on Elm Street can be hard to watch. It’s scary, yes, but it’s also bloody and gory. It has only gained in reputation since it was released.
   
7. The Exorcist [1973]
   (1973) – One of the most famous horror movies ever, The Exorcist is based in paranormal activity gone very wrong. Science and modern thought pale in comparison to the paranormal in this movie, and even the exorcist is unable to control the evil.
   
8. Poltergeist
   (1982) – This movie is so cursed, even the people who starred became effected by it. Poltergeist was a great movie that remains edgy and terrifying to this day, and the sudden deaths of many of its cast members only adds to its mystique.
   
9. Friday The 13^th
   (1980) – Another classic, the original Friday the 13^th was easily the best movie out of its series, and continues to be a landmark movie in pop culture. One of the major reasons why people know better than to go out in the woods by themselves.
   
10. Nosferatu
    (1922) – To be honest, many modern movie watchers will have a tough time being scared during this movie. But while Nosferatu wasn’t the first horror movie, it set the standard for horror for an entire era of films.
    

Many people have studied Halloween; the history of our most haunted holiday is fairly complex, and hard to pin down to one specific event. However, most scholars agree that Halloween has its most ancient roots in Celtic traditions. The ancient Celts lived in modern Ireland about two millennia ago, and they celebrated their New Years’ day on what is now November 1. They also believed that the barrier between the living and the dead was slightly weakened on the day before the new year (October 31).

On October 31 (now Halloween), the ancient Celts would hold a festival called Samhain, as they believed that on that night, the ghosts returned to the living world. In the Celts’ belief, these ghost would ravage their lands, destroying and damaging both property and crops. They also believed that the union between the spiritual and real world was at its strongest during this evening, and that this would aid their priests (Druids) in predicting future events.

As part of the Samhain festival, the Celts would gather in costumes and sacrifice crops and animals to the ghosts. They’d also set up large bonfires, which attracted insects and bats to the festival. It’s easy to see just how much influence this has on our modern day Halloween; the history and practice of the Samhain festival is almost directly related. However, the Celts did not view the day as haunted, per se. It was meant to be a joyous event above all else; it had more in common in spirit with our own New Years’ Eve.

Halloween acquired its haunted image upon the arrival of Christianity to Ireland. In the view of Christianity, the belief of ghosts and the Celts’ celebration of Samhain was heretical and blasphemous. The Christian missionaries went so far as to invent their own holiday – All Saints’ Day – to counter the traditional Samhain festival. This occurred in the 7th century, and the activities on All Saints’ Day. They also established a number of Christian holidays around the same time (to discourage the celebration of the old Celtic holidays), and these were collectively called Hallowmans.

However, the traditions of the Celts never quite died off. In the same way as the old Christian mission aries spread their beliefs and practices through Ireland, the Celtic way of celebrating the Hallowmans stayed much the same, and even spread throughout Great Britain. In this way, the tradition was also spread through North America, especially in the South. It continued to gains strength in America when their was a huge spike in Irish emigration in the mid-1800’s.

In North America, the October 31 was re-established as a holiday, called Halloween. The history of this transition is also somewhat blurry, as it seemed to happen throughout many small communities, gaining steam by the late 1800’s. By the end of that century, Halloween had become a fairly well-accepted holiday throughout the nation. It has continued to spread across the world, and is one of the most popular holidays we have today.