关于Halloween

关于Halloween,后悔没有早把资料放上来。我个人不支持庆祝这个“节日”。如果我们考察历史，就知道这个节日是与evil spirit有关的。人们害怕鬼，用灯笼等来吓跑鬼。世界上的确有鬼，但人们不知道要敬畏哪一位，以至于向Evil Spirit屈服。欣慰的是，女儿今年不再吵着要去要糖了，因为她知道我们只应当敬畏耶和华神。希望这些资料对朋友们有帮助。

Dear Lord,May your Kindom come,Amen!

Traditions

In Scotland, folklore, including that of Halloween, revolves around the ancient Celtic belief in faeries (Sidhe, or Sith, in modern Gaelic). Children who ventured out carried a traditional lantern (samhnag) with a devil face carved into it to frighten away the evil spirits. Such Halloween lanterns were made from a turnip, or “Neep” in “Lowland Scots,” with a candle lit in the hollow inside. In modern times, however, such lanterns use pumpkins, as in North American traditions, possibly because it is easier to carve a face into a pumpkin than into a turnip. Due to this, the practice of hollowing out pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns may have its roots in this practice.

Houses were also protected with the same candle lanterns. If the spirits got past the protection of the lanterns, the Scottish custom was to offer the spirits parcels of food to leave and spare the house another year. Children, too, were given the added protection by disguising them as such creatures in order to blend in with the spirits. If children approached the door of a house, they were also given offerings of food (Halloween being a harvest festival), which served to ward off the potential spirits that may lurk among them. This is where the origin of the practice of Scottish “guising” (a word that comes from "disguising"), or going about in costume, arose. It is now a key feature of the tradition of trick-or-treating practised in North America.