NEW YORK – Downtown New York City came alive yesterday night with people donning costumes to celebrate Halloween.

With the presidential election just one week away, it probably came to no one’s surprise that throngs of people flocked to the 43rd annual Village Halloween Parade in New York City Monday night dressed as either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

Halloween is an annual Western celebration based on Celtic pagan doctrines and traditionally applied to the evening of October 31st.

Celtics were a group occupying the area known now as Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Northern France about 2,000 years ago.

Halloween has clear connections with the Eve of Samhain, a celebration marking the beginning of winter as well as the first day of the New Year among ancient pagans of the British Isles (2nd century BC).

On this occasion, it was believed that supernatural forces gathered together and that the barriers between the supernatural and human worlds were broken.

They believed that spirits from other worlds, such as the souls of the dead were able to visit earth during this time and roam about.

When Christianity came to the British Isles, the church tried to take attention away from these pagan rituals by placing a Christian holiday on the same day.

The Christian festival, the Feast of All Saints, acknowledges the saints of the Christian faith in much the same way that Samhain had paid tribute to the pagan gods.

These traditions were brought to the United States by immigrants from Ireland and Scotland.

Source: AJ+