Halloween is a holiday ____ each year on October 31, and Halloween 2022 will ____ on Monday, October 31. The tradition ____ the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, ____ people ____ light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth century, the Catholic Church designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints. Soon, All Saints Day incorporated ____ traditions of Samhain. The evening before ____ All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween. ____, Halloween ____ a day of activities like trick-or-treating, carving jack-o-lanterns, festive gatherings, donning costumes and eating ____. To commemorate the event, Druids (Celtic priests) ____ huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered ____ and animals ____ sacrifices to the Celtic deities. The Celts ____ costumes, typically ____ animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. By A.D. 43, the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the 400 years that they ____ the Celtic lands, two ____ of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day ____ the dead. It’s widely believed that the church was attempting to ____ the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday. In the late 1800s, there ____ in America to mold Halloween into a holiday ____ about community and neighborly get-togethers ____ about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties ____ children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties ____ games, foods of the season and festive costumes. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice ____ trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively ____ for an entire community to ____ the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also ____ tricks being ____ them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. Thus, a new American ____ was born, and it ____ continued to grow. Today, Americans ____ an estimated $6 billion annually ____ Halloween, ____ the country’s second ____ commercial holiday after Christmas.

Halloween Description

by
Print
Embed

Leaderboard

Visual style

Options

Switch template

Continue editing: ?