Halloween Masquerade

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by: travis@inafind.com
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Word Count: 567

Is it really so that people still believe in stories about the dead men and ghosts? Or is it just the thing that Halloween is an entertaining holiday? Or is a good possibility for parents and children to play in demons and witches in this festive night, thus to travel back to the distant childhood…and memories are again alive…

Halloween is a fascinating costume party or a fancy dress party that is celebrated in the whole world on the night of October 31. This holiday can be traced to the deep history of Pagan rituals and old traditional autumn activities, supposed to be from Ireland, also distinguished as Samhain Night or End of Summer, a pastoral and agricultural "fire festival" or feast, when the dead revisited the mortal world…

This term Halloween is originated from All-hallow-even, thus the night before All Hallow Day, known as All Saints Day. The most famous symbol of Halloween is the Jack-o-lanterns. The legend of this pumpkin as a Halloween attribute is very simple and old… Many years ago Irish smith by name Jack was living on this Earth. He was extremely greedy and stingy. They say that once he could deceive Devil himself and got a guarantee from Devil that Devil would never ever encroach upon Jack’s soul.

…but… Jack did not get into Paradise due to his sinfulness. He had to wander around the Earth till the Judgment Day, lighting up his way by a small piece of burning coal shielded from wind and bad weather in a simple carved pumpkin…

Symbolism also plays its role in imagery. Typical Halloween costumes are usually associated with all that is dark, inexplicable and mysterious. Halloween fancy dresses comprise vampires, witches, ghosts, skeletons, goblins, mummies, demons etc. Due to your costume you may choose the right colour. For example, black symbolises powers of darkness, night, death, purple- mysticism, the supernatural, orange- autumn, pumpkins, harvest, red- blood, fire, green-monsters, goblins, white-mummies, ghosts, the full moon… you can give the full freedom to your imagination and create your own bright and memorable masquerade costume. Though, nowadays tendency shows that is becoming popular to dress like contemporary popular personalities: politicians, well-known stars…

Halloween gained a wide scope of celebration in many countries around the world. In the United Kingdom Halloween is the third holiday after Merry Christmas and Easter. Every year people decorate their homes and offices for this holiday, buy a lot of sweets, presents, and souvenirs… Almost each family strives to cook something delicious and special for this holiday. This is a time of the annual apple harvest, thus is a splendid time for the children as they like very much candy apples in sugar syrup with nuts.

An old rite of “trick-or-treating” is a great fun for the children as they go from house to house, call in their neighbours and perform a poem, trick, joke, sing a song or dance in order to earn some treats. Habitually, fruits like apples, pears, oranges, nuts and dried fruits are offered, but children also might be given some small cash.

And the culmination of Halloween is the Masquerade Party as children put on various costumes, play diverse games. They might buy a fancy dress or make it with their own hands, but in both cases Masquerade Party gives a great fun, pleasure and joy to children!!!