A real Halloween fright: Costume contracts
Halloween seems innocuous enough -- kids (and adults) dress up in costumes and trick or treat for candy. Americans like it so much that they spend about $7 billion on it a year, making it the country’s second most commercial holiday. Yet Oct. 31 remains one of the calendar’s most controversial days, and plenty of schools forbid kids from marking it during school time. Halloween has its roots in Samhaim, an ancient Celtic festival, and later in the Catholic Hallowmas period of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, and the Roman festival of Feralia.