万圣节小短文英文

Halloween October 31 On October 31st, dozens of children dressed in costumes（节日服装）knock on their neighbors' doors and yell "Trick or Treat" when the door opens. Pirates and princesses, ghosts and popular heroes of the day all hold bags open to catch the candy or other goodies that the neighbors drop in. As they give each child a treat the neighbors exclaim over the costumes and try to guess who is under the masks. Since the 800's November 1st is a religious holiday known as All Saints' Day（万圣节）. The Mass that was said on this day was called All hallowmas. The evening before became known as All Hakkiw e'en, or Halloween. Like some other American celebrations, its origins lie in both pre-Christian and Christian customs. October 31 st was the eve of theCeltic（凯尔特人的）new year. The Celts were the ancestors of the present-day Irish, Welsh and Scottish people. On this day ghosts walked and mingled with the living, or so the Celts thought. The townspeople baked food all that day and when night fell they dressed up and tried to resemble the souls of the dead. Hoping that the ghosts would leave peacefully before midnight of the new year. Much later, when Christianity spread throughout Ireland and October 31 was no longer the last day of the year, Halloween became a celebration mostly for children. "Ghosts" went from door to door asking for treats, or else a trick would be played on the owners of the house. When millions of Irish people immigrated to the United States in the 1840s the tradition came with them. Today' school dances and neighborhood parties called "block parties" are popular among young and old alike. More and more adults celebrate Halloween. They dress up like historical or political figures and go to masquerade parties（化妆舞会）. In larger cities, costumed children and their parents gather at shopping malls early in the evening. Stores and businesses give parties with games and treats for the children. Teenagers enjoy costume dances at their schools and the more outrageous the costume the better! Certain pranks（恶作剧）such as soaping car windows and tipping over garbage cans are expected. But partying and pranks are not the only things that Halloweeners enjoy doing. Some collect money to buy food and medicine for needy children around the world. Symbols of Halloween Halloween originated as a celebration connected with evil spirits. Witches flying on broomsticks with black cats, ghosts,goblins（小精灵）and skeletons have all evolved as symbols of Halloween. They are popular trick-or-treat costumes and decorations for greeting cards and windows. Black is one of the traditional Halloween colors, probably because Halloween festivals and traditions took place at night. In the weeks before October 31, Americans decorate windows of houses and schools withsilhouettes（轮廓）of witches and black cats. Pumpkins are also a symbol of Halloween. The pumpkin is an orange-colored squash, and orange has become the other traditional Halloween color. Carving pumpkins into jack- o'lanterns is a Halloween custom also dating back to Ireland. A legend grew up about a man named Jack who was sostingy（吝啬的）that he was not allowed into heaven when he died, because he was amiser（吝啬鬼）. He couldn't enter hell either because he had played jokes on the devil. As a result, Jack had to walk the earth with his lantern untilJudgement Day（审判日）. The Irish people carved scary faces out ofturnips（芜菁根）,beets（甜菜根）or potatoes representing "Jack of the Lantern," or Jack-o'lantern. When the Irish brought their customs to the United States, they carved faces on pumpkins because in the autumn they were more plentiful than turnips. Today jack-o'-lanterns in the windows of a house on Halloween night let costumed children know that there are goodies（糖果）waiting if they knock and say "Trick or Treat!" Halloween Treats Dried Pumpkin Seeds After carving your pumpkin, separate the pulp from the seeds.Rinse（冲洗）the seeds and spread them out to dry. The next day, add enough melted butter ormargarine（人造黄油）to coat each seed. Spread the seeds onto acookie sheet（甜酥饼干）and bake for 20 minutes in a 300 degree oven for 20 minutes or until they are slightly brown. Caramel Apples Take the paper wrapping off about 100caramels（饴糖）and put them in asaucepan（炖锅）. Put the saucepan over a pan of boiling water. Boil the water until the caramels melt. Put a wooden stick into the top of each apple,dip the apple into the caramel. Let them cool on wax paper and enjoy! Scary Stories No Halloween party is complete without at least one scary story. Usually one person talks in a low voice while everyone else crowds together on the floor or around a fire. The following is a retelling of a tale told in Britain and in North Carolina and Virginia. "What Do You Come For?" There was an old woman who lived all by herself, and she was very lonely. Sitting in the kitchen one night, she said, "Oh, I wish I had some company." No sooner had she spoken than down the chimney tumbled two feet from which the flesh had rotted. The old woman's eyes bulged with terror. Then two legs dropped to the hearth and attached themselves to the feet. Then a body tumbled down, then two arms, and a man's head. As the old woman watched, the parts came together into a great, tall man. The man danced around and around the room. Faster and faster he went. Then he stopped, and he looked into her eyes. "What do you come for? she asked in a small voice that shivered and shook. "What do I come for?" he said. "I come for YOU!" The narrator shouts and jumps at the person near him!

Halloween is for the "All Hallow's Evening". However, due to various reasons, Halloween has become the year's most popular and one of the most popular festivals, and many players with great enthusiasm to celebrate this holiday. Halloween in the October 31, in fact, praise and autumn festivals like Beltane is the festival of spring like the praise. Halloween witches and ghosts everywhere to say is just the beginning. So far in Europe, there are some isolated areas where people believe it is true. Ancient Rome in November 1 there is also a holiday, which is used to pay tribute to their goddess of Bo Mona. They bear ribs roasted nuts and apples before the bonfire. Our own Halloween seems to be a holiday by the Romans and the druid's holiday blend made of. Halloween activities in the original is very simple, and mostly in the church carried out. However, in the whole of Europe, it is regarded as a Halloween enjoy slapstick, Jiangguigushi and a good opportunity to scare each other. So people will no longer be used to praise this Autumn Festival, but it becomes supernatural, witches and ghosts festival.万圣节前夜就是"圣夜"的意思。然而，由于种种原因，万圣节前夜已变成一年中最流行和最受欢迎的节日之一，许多玩家都以极大的热情来庆祝这一节日。万圣节在10月31日，其实是赞美秋天的节日，就好像五朔节是赞美春天的节日一样。万圣节前夜到处有女巫和鬼魂的说法就是这么开始的。至今在欧洲某些与世隔绝的地区还有人相信这是真的。古罗马人在11月1日也有一个节日，那是用来向他们的波莫娜女神表示敬意的。他们在熊筋的篝火前烤坚果和苹果。我们自己的万圣节前夜似乎就是由古罗马人的节日与德鲁伊德的节日揉合而成的。万圣节前夜的活动原来是非常简单的，而且大部分是在教堂里进行的。但在整个欧洲，人们都把万圣节前夜看作尽情玩闹、讲鬼故事和互相吓唬的好机会。于是人们不再把这节日用来赞美秋光，却让它变成神怪、巫婆和鬼魂的节日。希望对你有用

Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual? The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year. One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living. Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess. Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach. Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth. The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween. The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role. The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates. The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven. The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree. According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer. The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember. So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.