Halloween Informative Speech

In today’s times people all over the world celebrate Halloween by dressing up in costumes, trick-or-treating, and handing out candy. However, most people do not know the story behind the holiday. The Halloween tradition dates back to pre-Christian times, making it one of the oldest holidays. With that in mind, it has undergone many changes to become the fun day/night it is now. Some of the same traditions are used, but others have changed so drastically that it is hard to pinpoint why it was changed. That is the ultimate question: why? The Halloween holiday is thought to have originated from the Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts lived approximately 2,500 years ago celebrated the festival as an end to summer and as a way to welcome winter. The festival was celebrated on the night before the new year, which to them was November 1st. The Celts also believed that on the night of October 31st, the worlds of the living and the dead became overlapped. In other words, they believed that ghosts of the dead
In 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to honor all of the Christian martyrs. Then the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Later, Pope Gregory III changed and expanded the festival to include not only the martyrs, but all saints as well. He then also changed the observance day from the 13th of May to the 1st of November. By the 9th century, the Christian churches spread to Celtic regions, blending their beliefs with the Celtic rites. That is when the church made November 2nd All Soul’s Day, a day that would honor the dead. It is thought thought that the Christian churches were trying to replace and do away with the Celtic festival to make the holiday more religious. Because of the churches, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion began to be called All-hallows Eve, and then eventually