Title: History of Halloween
Purpose: To inform the audience of how Halloween started and transformed to what it is now.
Thesis Statement: How Halloween has evolved from what it once was to what is now.
Introduction: Patrons of the season of Halloween spend over $2.5 billion dollars every year on candy, costumes, and decorations. Every year millions of kids get dressed up, knock on doors, and beg for candy. Have you ever wondered where this strange tradition originated? The three most important points of Halloween can be summed up by looking at its origins, how it came to include jack-o-lanterns and bobbing for apples, and how it is celebrated today with trick-or-treating and haunted houses. *
Where the origins of Halloween …show more content…

People believed the apple could be used to determine marriages during this time of year.
From this belief, young unmarried people would try to bite into an apple floating in the water. The first person to bite into an apple would be the next one to marry.
Halloween as we see it today in the 21st Century.
Trick-or-Treating, the most amusing way to get free candy.
During Samhain, the ancient Celts believed the dead would play tricks on them so they would leave bowls of food on doorsteps to appease the dead.
In the 9th Century, there is a european custom called "souling".
Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes" made out of square pieces of bread. The more cakes they received, the more prayers they promised to say on behalf of their dead relatives.
It is said that the dead remain in limbo for a time after death, and that for each prayer that they receive, can speed up the afterlife process.
When having go outside at night when the spirits were about, they would dress up as one of the dead in the hopes of not being noticed.
Wearing masks and other disguises and blackening the face with soot were the original ways of hiding oneself from the spirits of the dead.
Going to Haunted Houses in the hopes of getting scared.
Hell or Judgment houses are a relatively new concept created by the conservative Christian groups.
A Hell House consists of a group of horrific presentations within a type of haunted walks through the woods or