13. The Celts Gave Us Costumes
The Celtic festival of Samhain has given us many of our modern Halloween traditions, including the practice of wearing costumes. The Celts believed that Samhain, in addition to being a harvest festival, also marked the time of year during which the veil between the living and dead became porous allowing the dead and other spirits to walk the world of the living.
The Celts cleverly came up with several ways to ward off these spirits. The first was giant bonfires, a hallmark of the Samhain festival. These bonfires were intended to scare and ward off the forces of darkness that would be able to pass over into the land of the living. The second was wearing costumes. It was believed doing so would confuse the spirits, especially if they were looking for a specific person to enact some haunting or revenge.
Costumes continue to be immensely popular, though likely not to confuse spirits any longer. Americans spend millions of dollars on Halloween costumes every year. They even spend millions on costumes for the furry members of their family, with pet costumes becoming a burgeoning industry. While pre-made purchased costumes are popular now, many photographs exist of genuinely terrifying homemade outfits that children wore in 19th and early 20th century America.