Yahoo! Answers

**Secrets Revealed**

Trick or treating can be traced back to European “guising” traditions where children would travel from home to home, reciting songs, jokes or poems. They didn’t say “trick or treat” back then, it was “please help the guisers” — a reference to the groups who performed plays to ward off evil spirits during Samhain, the Celtic celebration we now know as Halloween.

The children were often given fruit, nuts, sweets or even money. Trick or treating started to take hold in North America during the middle of the 19th century, although it was put on hold for sugar rationing during World War II.

The Celts believed spirits of the dead would walk the earth on Halloween. Costumes were worn to help blend in with and hide from the real spirits who were thought to be walking among them.

The traditional colors of Halloween, Black and orange, have meaning too. Black is the typical color of death in many cultures and orange symbolizes strength in Celtic legend, which was important for weathering a harsh winter. They burned large bonfires, believing this would bring the heat of the sun back after winter. Animal bones were often thrown into the fires and some believe these “bone fires” spawned the term bonfire.

Chad Upton is the editor-in-chief of Broken Secrets and an official Yahoo Answers contributor.

Thanks for reading,

Sources: History.com, IrishCentral.com, Answers.com,

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Grampster Yamster by kaitlynann2010

We took a hiatus, but we’re back! It’s time for our Answers Halloween Costume Contest. In 2010, we had some amazing winners. So good we had to put them in categories and have YOU, our community, pick the winners.

Now flash forward to 2012. We can’t wait to see what you come up with this year!

Download the Yamster avatar and dress him up for Halloween.

Aviary which is built directly into Yahoo’s own Flickr, offers a plethora of accessories that you can use to deck out Yamster. You can also use something like Microsoft Paint, Photoshop, SumoPaint, or any other paint program on the market to edit or enhance an image.

Once you’re done dressing up your Yamster, save the image (right click and “save as”) and upload it to your Flickr account. Then, add the image to the Yahoo! Answers Halloween 2012 group.

In order to see all the fun dressed-up Yamsters, please make sure to join the Yahoo! Answers Halloween 2012 group.

Submissions must be received by 12 a.m. PST on Thursday, November 1st. The voting and winner(s) will be posted on the Yahoo! Answers Blog.

Rules:

• Yamsters must be submitted to Flickr by 12 a.m. PST on November 1st

• All images must be in compliance with Yahoo’s TOS, Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines, Flickr’s Community Guidelines, and must not contain mature or adult content

• Submitted images may only be that of the Yamster—no actual photographs will be accepted or considered

• No real value is given to this prize: winner(s) will receive bonus points on Yahoo! Answers

Happy Halloween!!

Thanks for reading,

Yahoo! Answers Team

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Last week, we asked you to dress up our Yamster for Halloween and boy, we’ve received some amazing entries. We were wowed by the creativity and effort that went into making our Yamster dressed up for Halloween and we want to thank everybody for their participation.

It is our honor to announce the nominees for this year’s Yamster Halloween Costume Contest. We want you to vote for your favorite entry per category. The last day to vote is next Wednesday, 11/11 at 5 PM PST.

And the nominees are (drum roll please…):

VOTE NOW FOR YOUR FAVORITE ENTRY PER CATEGORY!

Overall Winner:

Ya’mi the Yamatar, Joker, and Marilyn Monroe

Scariest Yamster:

I love you Yamster, Machete Yamster, Headless Yamster, and Zombie Yamster

Most Creative Yamster:

Gnome, Harry Potter, and Crystal Ball

Best Classic Costume Yamster:

Ghost, Mummy, and Bat

Funniest Yamster:

Grampster Yamster, Elephant Yamster, and Yamster Hilton

Celebrity Yamster:

Lady Gaga, Kiss, and Justin Bieber

Best Cartoon Costume Yamster:

Winnie the Pooh, Mario Brother, and Mickey Mouse

See some more entries in the slide show below and tell us what you think! In order to see all the fun dressed-up Yamsters, please make sure to join the Answers Halloween 2010 group.

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Once again, it’s time for our annual Answers Halloween Costume Contest. Last year, we had awesome winners and we can’t wait to see what you come up with this year!

Download the Yamster avatar and dress him up for Halloween!

Picnik which is built directly into Yahoo’s own Flickr, offers a plethora of accessories that you can use to deck out Yamster. You can also use something like Microsoft Paint, Photoshop, SumoPaint, or any other paint program on the market to edit or enhance an image.

Once you’re through dressing up your Yamster, save the image (right click and “save as”) and upload it to your Flickr account. Then, add the image to the Answers Halloween pool—found here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/yahooanswershalloween2010/.

In order to see all the fun dressed-up Yamsters, please make sure to join the Answers Halloween 2010 group.

Submissions must be received by 5 p.m. PST on Monday, November 1st. Winner(s) will be posted on the Yahoo! Answers Blog and will receive 200 bonus points on Yahoo! Answers.

Rules:

• Yamsters must be submitted to Flickr by 5 p.m. PST on November 1st

• All images must be in compliance with Yahoo’s TOS, Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines, Flickr’s Community Guidelines, and must not contain mature or adult content

• Submitted images may only be that of the Yamster—no actual photographs will be accepted or considered

• No real value is given to this prize: winner(s) will receive 200 bonus points on Yahoo! Answers

• Join the Answers Halloween 2010 group in order to see everyone’s entries

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Thanks to everyone who submitted a Halloween Yamster or Avatar image during last week’s outage—we loved going through everyone’s submissions and had a hard time picking just one winner. As a result, we’ve chosen one Grand Prize Winner (congratulations, Cameron!), and three category winners.

Thanks again for your patience during the outage and for all the great submissions.

If you didn’t get a chance to submit a Yamster, or want to take a look at some of the other nominees, be sure to stop by the Flickr pool, found here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/answershalloween/pool/

Grand Prize Winner – (500 points)

Cameron

Category Winners – (100 points)

Spookiest, X-Ellen-X

Best Effects,TechOfAJob

Best Classic Costume, ☸ ☥ ♡ ☮ ☯,

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