Of all the holidays of the year, Halloween is quite unique. While most other holidays and special occasions are just great excuses to have a party or two, get your friends and family together and have the fun of your lives on that particular day, Halloween takes a step higher (or lower) by getting you to look your worst.
So What's the Masquerade About?
Halloween is the only time of the year when costumes and masks galore with masquerade balls being held in nearly every noted hotel, restaurant and even your place. It's a rare time when you can live your fantasies and be someone or something else. For many, that includes looking your scary best. Be a hideous monster, a vampire, a werewolf, a ghost or a skeleton. Get an axe through your head, or blood all over.
Show a severed limb or two. And for the less squeamish, just about all the historic characters of the past come alive with costumes and masks that can make you a pirate, a Roman gladiator, or any of the weirdos in literature and the cinema like an Alien (there are many variants), Edward Scissorhands, Voldemort, the Franskenstein monster or just plain Dracula. Masks and costumes have always been a part of the Halloween tradition for both kids and grown ups. For kids, trick-or-treating won't have that annual festive appeal without them.
So How Did All These Started?
First off, Halloween has its roots way back during the time of Celts and Druids in England's storied past long before it was Christianized. There was this Feast of the Dead annually celebrated by the Celts in every part of the British Isles. And the date of celebration tells it all - Oct 31st after sunset. It was a festive night with food and pagan prayers offered to the dead. The Romans had the same festivity to honor their departed in the Feralia, but held on the 21st of February. Both occasions are often marked with the use of masks.
When Pope Gregory III declared November 1st of every year a day of commemorating the biblical "dust to dust" origins and destiny of the human flesh, he took the old English term "hallow" and the Scottish "e'en" so now you have Halloween to mean holy evening and with it, the traditions of the old English celebration of the dead complete with scary masks. And when the English landed to make their first settlement in the New World, the rest, as they say, is history.
The masks became more elaborate and costumes came into vogue for a more convincing realistic look. The occasion took root in the new world and in time, spread throughout the rest of the planet with about the same fervor as a Hollywood movie.
Commercialism
Masks and costumes won't be such a popular dressing style on Halloween if not for the commercialism that has made them variously accessible to anyone wanting to get into the spirit of the holiday. Scary characters in the movies that have become pop icons are now part of the costuming wardrobe. So don't be generic this Halloween, get into a mask or costume, your fellow revelers can identify. It can make the masquerade ball more interesting to see a Hollywood character in their midst.
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