Halloween

Halloween, or Hallowe’en is celebrated on October 31. Halloween activities include trick or treat, ghost tours ( I have seen one) bonfires, costume parties ,visiting haunted attractions, carving jack o lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Irish immigrants carried versions of tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries, most commonly in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom and occasionally in parts of Australia.
The carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols in America, and is commonly called a jac-o-lantern. Originating in Europe, these lanterns were first carved from a turnip or rutabaga . Believing that the head was the most powerful part of the body containing the spirit and the knowledge, the Celts used the "head" of the vegetable to frighten off any .The name jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking farmer. He tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the tree trunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of a hollowed turnip. The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America, where pumpkins were readily available and much larger, making them easier to carve than turnips. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their home's doorstep after dark. In America the tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Greay Famine period of Irish immigration. The carved pumpkin was originally associated with harvest time in general in America and did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.