Halloween is an ancient Celtic festival that celebrates (or celebrated) the Lord of the
Dead. During their festivals, they dressed in scary costumes and carved scary faces on turnips (and
now pumpkins) to scare the
evil demons away, and made huge bonfires where they burnt offerings to the pagan gods (like vegetables and children - nice mix, huh?)
Later, since the Pagans wouldn't stop their death celebrations, the Christian church changed the name to All Saints' day (a celebration of the Christian saints instead) and voilà! Now everyone's beliefs are combined and everyone is
happy. Then from that was All Hollow's Eve, and so on and so forth until it was Halloween.
Now, little kids run around in
princess costumes collecting candy from strangers and decorating their homes with death symbols.
...I'm sure that the
princess costumes did a much better job at scaring the demons.
Person: Hey, what are you being for Halloween this
year?
Other person: I'm gonna be a
witch with
freaky hair. What are you gonna be?
Person: Haha, I'm gonna be a dead cheerleader.