Halloween is just around the corner, with many of us likely to be dressing up as we devour sweets and chocolate.
The spooky festival is something that has become more and more popular over the years, with some people even decorating their home to mark the time of year.
While this year is likely to be different, because of the coronavirus restrictions, there's no reason why you can't still have fun as a household, bobbing for apples together and watching a scary film.
As Halloween edges ever closer we decided to take a look at the history of the holiday and just why we celebrate it.
The origins of Halloween can be traced back to the ancient Gaelic festival called Samhain, meaning Summers End, which was held on November 1.
The Celts believed that on that day the souls of the dead returned to their homes, so people dressed in costumes and lit bonfires to ward off the souls.
This is how witches and ghosts began to become associated with the holiday.
When the Christians came to Ireland, Scotland and Wales, they brought with them their own traditions.
One of the ways the Christians tried to convert the Celts was to blend Pagan holidays into Christian ones.
Christians celebrated All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2, which honoured people who had died and gone to heaven.
All Saints Day was also called All Hallows Day, so the day before All Saints day was All Hallows Eve, which eventually came to be called Halloween.
All Souls Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils.
Halloween was mainly celebrated in Ireland, but when many Irish people emigrated to America following the potato famine they brought their traditions with them and Halloween started to grow in popularity in the USA.
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The custom of trick-or-treating became popular in the early 20th century as Irish and Scottish communities revived the Old World custom of “guising,” in which a person would dress in costume and tell a joke, recite a poem, or perform some other trick in exchange for a piece of fruit or other treat.
By 1950, trick-or-treating for sweets and chocolate had become one of Halloween’s most popular activities.
This tradition eventually moved over to the UK and Halloween is now widely celebrated here too.
