Halloween History Trivia And Fun

In Mexico the people do not observe Halloween, instead they celebrate a festival called The Day of the Dead.

Pumpkin growing can actually be a big money maker. "Biggest Pumpkin" contests are held at many festivals and the winning prize has been known to be as high as $25,000!

Christmas is the only Holiday that is more popular and generate more spending as Halloween. Overall we, in the US, spend more than 4 billion dollars each Halloween season on candy, decorations, costumes and throwing parties.

The very first year that Halloween was celebrated city-wide in the US was 1921 in Anoka, Minnesota.

Over 36 million Trick-Or-Treaters, including about 92% of children under 12, hit the streets and sidewalks of America every Halloween.

About 1/2 of adults will dress up in a Halloween costume and nearly 2/3 of adults will at least participate in Halloween activities.

In America about 86% of the people decorate their homes for Halloween.

More than 10% of American pet owners actually dress their pets up for a frightfully fun Halloween.

This one is important! 90% of parents surveyed confessed to sneaking treats from their children's Trick-Or-Treat bags! (Kids, count that candy!)

The amount of candy corn made in one year (most of it being for Halloween) comes out to around 9 billion candy kernels!

Trick or Treat!

Where did the practice of dressing up in scary costumes and going door to door for treats originate? No one knows for sure how Trick-or-Treating first got started, but it is certain that it was a very long time ago.

Back in ancient times some cultures, including the Druids and the Celts, tried to appease the spirits by placing food gifts and other items outside their doors. It is said that some of the children would dress up in costumes so they would appear to be spirits in order to sneak in and steal the gifts and treats.

Another possible origin for Trick-or-Treating may be the old practice of "Souling" observed by some ancient Christians. Participants would go from door to door asking for soul cakes (small pieces of bread) in return for promising to pray for the givers family members who have passed away.

Would you like to know how Halloween came to be? Why do we celebrate it in the way that we do?
Learn about the origins of Halloween on this great lens.

Here is a great collection of vintage Halloween postcards. Click the thumbnails to see the full size images:

The first Jack-O-Lanterns were actually carved from turnips, gourds and potatoes. The custom originated in Ireland hundreds of years ago. The Irish people (Celts) carved their Jack-O-Lanterns and placed small candles inside them as a way to ward off evil spirits and especially a character known as Stingy Jack.

Stingy Jack, according to their mythology, succeeded in tricking the Devil so that the Devil could not lay claim to his soul. When Jack died he discovered that he was also blocked from entering heaven. Jack was forced to wander in the darkness, trapped forever between heaven and hell. The Devil brought Jack a burning ember from the fires of hell. Jack carved out a large turnip and put the ember inside of it to fashion a light with which he could see.

Later, when the Irish immigrated to America, they began to use pumpkins to carve their Jack-O-Lanterns. The pumpkin was much larger and easier to carve and could hold a bigger candle.

Over the years Halloween costumes have become more and more elaborate and detailed. The days of cutting eye holes out in a sheet are all but gone. Today, the different choices of styles and characters is almost unlimited.

Previous generations had much simpler costumes. Sometimes our parents bought us a costume from a store, which was often just a plastic face mask. However, most parents actually created costumes for their children out of clothing, make-up and things they had around the house.

I thought it would be interesting to show you some of the old vintage Halloween costumes from yesteryear.

Halloween has its origins in Ireland. When the Irish people began immigrating to America they brought their traditions and beliefs with them including, of course, the traditions of Halloween.

The ancient Celts of Ireland held an annual festival know as Samhain. It was a time to celebrate the ending of the harvest. It was also a time when the people believed that the boundary separating the living from the dead was at its weakest, which to them, meant that the dead could interact with the living to cause problems. Much of the traditions that were observed were intended to appease or ward off the dead spirits so they would not harm the living.

Over the years the Halloween gifts and the holiday itself became "Westernized", but most of the things we do today to celebrate the holiday still have their roots in ancient Ireland among the Celts.

Some of the most popular activates people like to do around Halloween include; Trick-Or-Treating, Dressing up in costumes, Decorating houses and yards with spooky Halloween stuff, Carving Jack-O-Lanterns, Visiting haunted houses, Building bonfires, Telling or reading ghost stories, and Watching scary movies.

Here is a spooky fun family out on the town for Halloween 2007.

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