Hi to all you ghouls out there, Although you could definitely find more detailed write-ups of this somewhere, the following short explanation puts it in a nutshell and shouldn't bore the pants off you:
Halloween itself is wearing a mask, because it's actually an ancient year-end spiritual ritual in disguise.
Halloween has gone through two major transformations since its beginning at least 3,000 years ago as an ancient European folk festival to a Christian folk festival and now a modern, pop culture holiday.
Prior to changes in our modern calendar, Halloween took place at the end of the year in conjunction with the winter solstice. In the evening, people would light bonfires and set out food to welcome back the spirits of the beloved dead and dress up as ghosts and goblins to scare away unwanted spirits.
These days, Halloween is all about good scary fun, but people have been thrilling to spooky tales as far back as ancient Greece and Rome. Ghost stories have been popular for thousands of years, and there are many reasons why people enjoy them and enjoy being scared by them…but, more essentially, ghost stories ultimately reflect religious beliefs concerning the importance of a proper burial and the survival of the spirit after death. The dead have a need to rest in peace, while the living have a need to believe in an afterlife; who really wants to think about eternal non-existence? And the humor in a lot of ghost stories is a good way to deal with the disturbing reality of death.
Interesting stuff methinks, dreamer7