Halloween

Halloween is a holiday traditionally celebrated on October 31st. The holiday typically involves children dressing up in costumes and going trick-or-treating. Through this, they receive candy or other treats dropped in bags, though an occasional trick can't be ruled out. Halloween is often celebrated through parties. It is associated with the colors of orange and black and is symbolized through various spooky elements including ghosts and goblins, black cats and carved pumpkins known as "jack-o-lanterns."

History
About 2000 years ago, the Celtic farmers lived in Britain, the United Kingdom, northern France, and Ireland celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer months the final harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. The Celts believed that on the night before the new year, it was a magical day when the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth and revisited people's homes. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, the Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or the Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark and cold winter. To commemorate the event, the Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celtic villagers wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins to scare the evil spirits away, and they attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter. By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III (731–741) later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 through November 1. By the 9th century the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted the older Celtic rites. In 1000 A.D., the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It is widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. All Souls Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. By medieval times the Celts and their descendants left food or wine in front of their doorsteps because they believed that the dead would eat it all and wouldn't need to come in the house, if they appeased the evil spirits good luck would come their way but if they failed to appease them misfortune will come for the remainder of the year. The church wanted to change that because they encouraged the people to hand out food or wine to the poor on All Soul's Day. In return for "soul" cakes, the poor promised to pray for the souls of peoples dead relatives who gave them cakes. Soon the children were dressing up and begging for cakes too. An Irish legend tells the tale of a man named Stingy Jack, invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack has decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which stopped the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under one condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that when Jack should die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack tricked the Devil again into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years. Many years later Jack died, and his soul went to go knock on Heaven's door but he was told by Saint Peter that he was mean and cruel and because he led a miserable life on earth, Stingy Jack was not to enter Heaven and Jack decided that he might as well go to Hell instead. When he got to the Gates of Hell and begged for commission into the underworld. He wasn't welcome by the devil, either because of his promise he made to Jack years earlier. Now Jack was scared because he has nowhere to go so Stingy Jack pleaded with the Devil to at least provide him with a light to help find his way. And as a final gesture, the Devil, tossed Jack an ember straight from the fires of Hell. From that day to this, Stingy Jack is doomed to roam the world between the planes of good and evil, with only an ember inside a hollowed turnip. Because he couldn't see in the dark, he carved out a turnip or a potato and putted in a lump of coal he got from the devil earlier. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’Lantern.” In Ireland, the people began to make vegetable lanterns with scary faces into turnips, gourds, beets, rutabagas, mangelwurzels, or potatoes they placed a light in them to ward off evil spirits and keep Stingy Jack away from their homes, which later became the well known Jack O Lanterns. When the people from Europe immigrated to America during the potato famine, they brought their traditions with them and celebrated today's secular holiday that everyone can enjoy which is regardless to their religious beliefs.

The Simpsons media
Within the world of The Simpsons, Halloween has been depicted in a number of releases, including the following.
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror" (1990)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror II" (1991)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror III" (1992)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror IV" (1993)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror V" (1994)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror VI" (1995)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror VII" (1996)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror VIII" (1997)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror IX" (1998)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror X" (1999)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XI" (2000)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XII" (2001)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XIII" (2002)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XIV" (2003)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XV" (2004)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XVI" (2005)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XVII" (2006)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XVIII" (2007)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XIX" (2008)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XX" (2009)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XXI" (2010)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XXII" (2011)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XXIII" (2012)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XXIV" (2013)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XXV" (2014)
 * The Simpsons: "Halloween of Horror" (2015)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XXVI" (2015)
 * The Simpsons: "Treehouse of Horror XXVII" (2016)