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You’ve celebrated Halloween for as long you can remember. But why? Here’s some history:
- The name “Halloween” is derived from “All Hallows Eve,” or the night before the feast of the All Saints.
- Irish immigrants to the United States helped popularize the holiday.
- The carved pumpkin, one of Halloween’s most recognized symbols, stems from a centuries-old Irish tradition of carving a lantern out of a turnip or rutabaga. The name “jack-o-lantern” can be traced back to the Irish legend of an old farmer named Stingy Jack, who trapped the devil by tricking him into climbing a tree and carving a cross on the trunk. For revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, where he is forever damned to wander the earth at night.
- Costumes and masks did not figure into Halloween celebrations in America until after 1900. Halloween costumes were not available for sale in stores until the 1930s.
- Halloween has become the sixth most profitable holiday in the US, after Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Father’s Day.
- Door-to-door begging for candy (aka trick-or-treating) did not become a Halloween mainstay until the 1950s.
- Per Wikipedia, the National Retail Federation cites that witches, pirates, vampires, cats and clowns, in that order, are the most popular Halloween costumes for adults.
- Halloween is the second most popular holiday for home decorating in the US, second only to Christmas.
- The National Confectioners Association reported that, in 2005, 80 percent of American adults planned to give out candy to trick-or-treaters and 93 percent of children planned to go trick-or-treating.
- Anoka, Minnesota, the self-proclaimed “Halloween Capital of the World”, celebrates with a large civic parade and many other city-wide events each year.
- New York City is host to the Village Halloween Parade, the largest Halloween celebration in the U.S. The evening parade attracts more than two million spectators and participants, in addition to almost four million television viewers, encouraging spectators to join in the parade.
- The greatest number of simultaneously glowing jack-o-lanterns in one place was 30,128 – a world record set in Boston last year.
- The colors of Halloween are associated with:
- Black – death, night, witches, black cats, bats, vampires
- Orange – pumpkins, autumn, fire and jack-o-lanterns
- Green – goblins, monsters, zombies, aliens
- White – mummies, full moon, ghosts
- Purple – the supernatural, mysticism, night
- Red – blood, fire, demons, Satan
