Halloween is approaching! Are you ready for this holiday? Do you actually celebrate it? And do you want to know where it came from and what is the attitude to it in Ukraine?

So, Halloween has really long history. It appeared in Celtic culture almost 2,000 years ago, when the 1st of November was the day of spirits, and at night of the 31st of October the ghosts were believed to leave their tombs. That evening people were leaving various treats for these spirits, and were dressing the same way to trick them and to pretend being one of them.

As Christianity was developing the same period, it turned out that Bible prohibited communication with ghosts, and actually didn’t have any similar holiday, so the church had to invent the All Saints’ Day.

The holiday was developing. Later, another tradition appeared, which was called trick-or-treat. Actually, on the 2nd of November there was the Souls’ Day, when children were gathering different goods from people and in return prays for the souls of their relatives. As a result, holiday evolved, but there were much more “thicks” than “treats” until the 18th century when the final form of Halloween appeared. Nowadays, it is oriented more on children who walk from house to house in costumes asking for sweets.

In Ukraine, this holiday is not too popular. There are two opinions: people who are aggressively against this holiday, as they consider it to be completely foreign, and those who love to participate in it. However, in Ukraine this holiday is for adults basically. Children don’t ask for treats, but grown-ups adore to dress up in various costumes and have parties or wander around the city scaring people.

Ladies also love dressing up! There are two major trends in their costumes:

Classic

Sexual

With classic everything is clear. Ladies make a scary make-up, dress like witches, zombies, vampires and other scary creatures, and sometimes you even can’t recognize a lady in make-up. And sexual trend appeared because of sexual revolution which happened almost 30 years ago after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ladies from this trend don’t intend to scary anyone, they want to show their beauty. That’s why they can be dressed as sexual witches, sexual vampires, sexual zombies and various other characters which even can be not related to spirits and ghosts.

This holiday is considered to be one of the most costly holidays in the USA, as people buy awful amount of sweets, costumes and decorations. But, who cares if you can have so much fun?