It's that time of year again. With spooky season upon us, the grocery store shelves are stocked with Halloween candy and pumpkin-flavored everything while the malls are filled with Halloween costumes and accessories. 

It's a special time when we carve pumpkins, watch horror movies, dress up and if you’re like me, watch “It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” followed by “The Nightmare Before Christmas” — the cult classics. 

I've always loved Halloween. My mom and I would watch Halloween movies and make pumpkin pie and there was never a year where I didn’t dress up. Carving a pumpkin was an essential part of the Halloween experience, and in my neighborhood, if you didn't have your house covered in cobwebs, fake spiders and pumpkins in front of the door, you lacked true Halloween spirit. 

I’ve always had a nostalgic feeling around this time of year since I grew up with so many little family traditions revolving around the fall season. While people tend to focus on the “horror” aspect of Halloween, that's not the holiday I've grown to know and love. 

The “scare” aspect was not a part of the Wilkes household, but rather one that was more wholesome. However, as I got older, if you asked me to watch a horror movie I wouldn't complain. 

To me, getting in the Halloween spirit has always consisted of carving pumpkins, watching all the Halloween movies, decorating the house with mini pumpkins and lights, going to the pumpkin patch — and when I was younger — going trick or treating. 

Being the Halloween enthusiast I am, I felt it was only right to do a little research on where this special holiday originated. I mean, can I call myself a true fan of Halloween without knowing where it comes from? 

Let's go back 2,000 years to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain in Ireland. The Celts celebrated their new year on Nov. 1, and Oct. 31 marks the end of summer and the start of a dark and chilly winter. This time of year was often associated with human death. The Celts believed that the night before the new year, the wall between the world of the living and the dead would split, allowing all the ghosts of the dead to return to earth. 

The Celts celebrated by dressing up, having parades, playing tricks on one another, bobbing for apples and lighting bonfires — sound familiar? They would even set places at the dinner table for the spirits, leave treats on doorsteps and light candles to help loved ones have a lighted path back to the spirit world. 

Today, ghosts are often perceived as scary or evil spirits you want to warn off, and seeing a black cat or a raven is a sign of back luck or death. Something I always wondered was why we associated black cats with Halloween? Whether you’re watching a movie, decorating or thinking of a costume, a black cat is always somewhere in the picture. 

Upon doing further research, I learned that this costume came from the Middle Ages belief that witches hide their identities by shapeshifting into black cats. 

Now that we know a little more about how this special holiday came to be, we can embrace and understand it a little more this upcoming year. 

So what are you waiting for? Take a break from studying, go buy a pumpkin spice latte, get dressed up with your friends and celebrate. However, keep your wits about yourself on Halloween night if you see a black cat or feel a cold breeze brush up against you. But what do I know? It's all a bunch of hocus pocus…