Most of the Western World celebrate Halloween on October 31st of every year. However, while ghosts and ghouls dominate their costumes, Wiccans and other pagans celebrate their Samhain (pronounced "sah-win" or "sow-in"), which, according to the Huffington Post is a Celtic Festival that celebrates the autumn harvest and onsets their winter.

With that in mind, Wiccans and Pagans celebrate their own Samhain from the sunset of October 31st to the sunrise of November first, which is almost halfway between the autumn equinox and winter solstice.

To celebrate this event, they have bonfires, dancing, feasting, and building of altars to honor their ancestors, with some of them leaving special loaves of Samhain bread for the spirits outside of their homes, as it is considered as a time when the veil between the living and the dead is thin. The food they leave for the dead serves as their way of honoring their dead.

While it is among the eight major Wiccan holidays celebrated throughout the year, Samhain is said to be the original festival behind what the rest of the Western World knows as Halloween, considering that among the most common traditions in Samhain include carving of pumpkins and bobbing for apples.

Wiccans also have their rituals of guiding the dead home and celebrate doing so by opening a western-facing door or window and light a candle by said opening.

Interestingly, there are also myths surrounding the holiday, many of them being cause for mixed views and interpretations. Among the most popular myths, according to World Religion News, include Samhain being a name of a Celtic God, and the assumption of many that it is essentially the same as Halloween.

These are not the cases on both counts. As noted, Samhain is the honoring of the death of a God in Celtic Mythology and is a celebration of the end of the harvest season. Halloween, on the other hand, was said to have begun as a celebration of All Saints Day (November 1st) and was made to coincide with the dates of Samhain to quench the growth of paganism during the early days. History.com mentioned that Pope Gregory III designated the date in the eighth century as an attempt to replace the Samhain with a similar festival of the dead but celebrated as a church-sanctioned holiday instead.

Today, Halloween is celebrated for children with tricks and treats, but for those who want to learn more about the pagan holiday of Samhain, everyone is said to welcome to celebrate the traditional Celtic festival -- atheists included.