Hey Naturals, what's up? How's it going? Welcome to Go Natural English
I'm your English teacher, Gabby.
You might be wondering why I'm wearing
a skeleton onsie. Well besides
the fact that it's really comfortable and I think it's kind of
fun, it's going to be Halloween the end of
October, October 31st is Halloween!
I wanted to talk with you our Go Natural English
community about why Americans
celebrate Halloween and maybe some vocabulary
that you might like to know to celebrate the holiday
if you'd like to celebrate it. Oops I just hit my straw here.
This is a Halloween design on
my soda.
Tastes like Halloween!
I misspoke. It's not a holiday.
I remember a lot of my English students would think or hope
that we would not have class that it would be a holiday off
from school but in fact Halloween is not in fact a public holiday.
All business, all classes, everything
runs as usual. Business as usual on
Halloween. It's also not a religious holiday.
What it is is kind of a cultural
celebration that was brought over from
Europe, specifically from Irish immigrants to the United States
in colonial times and it came from
a cultural event or celebration
that they had called Samhain that celebrated the
time that they believed that the space
between the spirit world and the living world was not
very big. So they believed that spirits could
come and walk amongst us, well at least
that's what I read on the Internet. Also
in the Southwest United States, which is close to Mexico
Halloween is very close to the Day of the Dead or
El Dia de los Muertos and that is a
similar cultural festival and so
it's very possible, very likely that we borrowed some of that
tradition here in the United States. So what actually happens on Halloween?
I remember when I was a little kid, like
several years ago, we used to celebrate Halloween in school.
We were allowed to dress up. Sometimes we would dress up in
scary costumes like this or maybe our favorite
move characters or something fun.
We would share candy. We would do
special fun activities, play games, but
nowadays I don't think that kids celebrate Halloween at school
anymore. I think that to be more
politically correct we don't celebrate Halloween
except for private gatherings.
Maybe if you work in the US it depends
on your work culture in your office, people may celebrate
Halloween, but it really depends on your office culture
and where you work. Sometimes adults celebrate.
You might be invited to a Halloween-themed party and you might
want to check if people are dressing up. You can ask, "Hey, is this a
costume party?" So that's one good phrase to know, a
costume party. Another good phrase to know is "trick or
treat." Trick or treat is an activity that usually children
do. Adults would only do it if they're bringing children.
It's when you go door-to-door
usually in an neighborhood in the suburbs of the United States
children will go door-to-door with their parents usually
knock on the door and say "trick-or-treat" and they're asking
for candy. This was something that I did as a kid.
I have fond memories of that. I haven't done that in many
many years. But it's still fun
to maybe go to a Halloween party or do something
fun with your friends, go to a themed event at a
bar or restaurant. That's basically what happens on
Halloween. It's most like a costume party
and not anything religious, not a public holiday.
If you have any questions about Halloween you can write them in
the comments and our awesome Go Natural English community
members may answer and I will definitely answer as well.
If you have comments, if you'd like to tell me how you
like to celebrate Halloween, or if you celebrate
Halloween, yes or no, please tell me in the comments.
I will be very interested to know if people celebrate Halloween
in your country and what do you usually do?
I've noticed where I've traveled in the world in Japan
and Brazil and actually last year, I forgot to tell you
on Halloween I was in Abu Dhabi and the hotel where I
was staying had a Halloween party. I was totally shocked. I had
no idea that people celebrate Halloween in Abu Dhabi.
But who knew? Maybe you can share with me about how people
celebrate or don't celebrate in your country. So I'll
look forward to hearing from you in the comments. Alright, talk to you
soon! Bye for now and happy Halloween!