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Many Ukrainians first heard about Halloween through American movies and Western culture, but lately, it’s becoming more visible at home. Each year, more streets feature festive decorations, themed parties pop up, and the holiday gets casual mentions. So where did Halloween actually come from?

The name ‘Halloween’ came from the phrase ‘All Hallows’ Evening’ and it means the night before All Saints’ Day. But the holiday has a long history and begins with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. It was celebrated about 2,000 years ago in what is now Ireland, the UK, and northern France. The Samhain symbolizes the end of the harvest and the start of winter, which at that time was associated with death. The Celts believed that on October 31st, the boundary between the living and the dead became thin, allowing spirits to return to the Earth. People wore costumes made from animal skins to scare any ghosts and lit big fires and made sacrifices to appease the spirits.

Over the years, these ancient traditions blended with Christian customs, such as prayers for the dead, to form the Halloween we know today. The famous jack-o-lanterns at first were carved from turnips. People placed candles inside these hollowed vegetables to create improvised lanterns to scare away spirits. Pumpkins became the preferred choice later, particularly in the United States, because they were easier to carve.

Halloween is now very popular in Western culture. Families make lanterns from pumpkins, choose costumes and decorate their homes with fake spiders, skeletons and scary lights. Children like to perform the ‘trick-or-treat’ tradition, while adults often attend Halloween parties dressed as mystical creatures.

In Ukraine, the holiday is still catching on. Younger people enjoy it, with bars and clubs throwing costume parties and more shops and cafes decorating with pumpkins, fake webs, and skeletons. Some people say that the old Ukrainian variant of Halloween was called Veles` night with a bucket of clean water and a new broom left in a bathhouse, with traditional jumping over the night bonfire and a festive dinner, who knows… In any case, while it’s not as big here yet, Halloween’s spooky charm is definitely growing!