by Aude (Oct 17, 2004)

The word comes from an older name : " All Hallows Eve ". " Hallows " means Holy and " een " means evening.

Halloween comes from an old Celtic tradition. In the 1800s, the Irish immigrated to the US and they brought their tradition. It’s at that moment that the celebration of Halloween began.

On that night children and younger teenagers go " trick or treating ". They visit their friends’ and their neighbour’s homes, and they say " Trick or Treat ", which means " If you don’t give me a treat, I’m going to play a trick on you ! 

They go from door to door with a big paper shopping bag where they put sweets, fruits and pennies inside. They are often costumed as ghosts, witches, skeletons or other. So if you go in the street, and you meet witches or other monsters, don’t worry : it’s Halloween!!!!

Why do we dig pumkins?

The tradition began with a legend which says that Jack, an Irish ghost, was banished from heaven and hell. So Jack still walks on Earth with a lantern!

That’s why we dig pumkins and we do a face on it . We call it Jack-o-lantern.

If you wish to react to this article, write to the editor.

(April 2, 2005)

I agree with your article but I think that sometimes people invent new stories for Halloween or only dress up for the candies not because of what it means.
I also think that creating new stories is great fun for young people because if they have in their minds different stories, they will pay attention to more noises and imagine different things.
Here in primary schools that teach English we celebrate Halloween with costumes and games that give you candy if you win.
Maybe the story about Jack is real but here in Argentina we don't know it.

Estefania (Buenos Aires)

April 2, 2005

I think that it’s a good article that tells us information about Halloween that maybe we didn’t know. I believe that probably it will be interesting if you can tell us more about the costumes because here in Argentina we don’t celebrate it at all. I think that the story about Jack is very interesting because we don’t know about it. I believe that if you tell in your article more about Jack’s story like that someone saw him, like that kind of things it will be more interesting.

Rocio (Buenos Aires)