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Monthly Spotlight: Halloween!

Halloween

Halloween, noun

 The eve of All Hallows' or All Saints'; the last night of October. Also attributive.

    In the Old Celtic calendar, the year began on 1st November, so the last evening of October was ‘old year's night’, the night of all the witches, which the Church transformed into the Eve of All Saints.

   Formerly the Hallow Even Fire, a relic of Druidism, was kindled in Buchan.

   The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints. Soon, All Saints Day incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities like trick-or-treating, carving jack-o-lanterns, festive gatherings, donning costumes, and eating treats. 

   The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance, and sing. --History

The Classic Celebration:

Not-So-Classic Celebration:

  • Build haunted gingerbread houses
  • Have a Halloween craft night
  • Have your tarot cards read
    • Or you can do the readings!
  • Set up a Halloween tree
    • Yes, this is aimed at those Christmas season lovers
  • Taste test all this year's Halloween candy
  • Have a Halloween pumpkin hunt!
    • Similar to that of Easter, but with small pumpkins instead of eggs

Check out some of the Halloween Stats we have found from the last couple of years! (2020-2022)!

  • 67% of Americans who plan to hand out candy
  • 51% who plan to decorate
  • 47% planning to don costumes
  • 44% who plan to carve a pumpkin
  • 28% either throwing or attending a Halloween party
  • The U.S. was home to an estimated 42 million potential trick-or-treaters in 2021
    • defined as children between the ages of five and 14
    • Iowa had an estimate of 417,424 in 2021
  • The most sought-after costume in 2022 for Iowa was a Witch costume
    • With Spider-Man, Dinosaur, Stranger Things, Fairy, Pirate, Rabbit, Cheerleader, Cowboy, and Harley Quinn making up the most popular 10
  • According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, national utilized production of pumpkins increased a staggering 26% in 2021
    • from 1.3 trillion pounds to 1.65 trillion
    • Illinois was the top producer accounting for nearly 40% of the national production
  • $10.6 billion in American spending on the holiday, the highest Halloween spending in the 18 years of data collection
    • $3.6 billion is expected to be spent on costumes
      • Around $2.9 billion of that will be spent on children’s and adults’ costumes
      • And an estimated record $710 million of expenditure on pet costumes

All this is from US News reports. And from the Census Bureau: 

  • Approximately 800: The number of formal wear and costume rental establishments in the United States in 2020.
  • About 128 million: The latest number of homes or apartments where people live and possible places for trick-or-treaters to visit
    • As of 2021
  • 3,320: Total number of candy and nut stores in the United States in 2020
  • Approximately 45,000 (45,662): The number of people employed by U.S. chocolate and chocolate candy manufacturing businesses in 2020.
  • • Approximately 22,000 (22,245): The number of people employed by U.S. nonchocolate candy manufacturing businesses in 2020.

 

  • The first known celebrations of Samhain are said to have occurred around 600 A.D., making Halloween more than 3,500 years old.
  • Samhain means “summer’s end” and marks the beginning of winter.
    • The Celts believed that Samhain was a time when the dead could walk among the living.
  • Trick-or-treating began in areas of the United Kingdom and Ireland.
    • People went house-to-house “souling” - asking for small breads called “soul cakes” in exchange for prayer.
  • Adults also went door-to-door asking for food and drinks in exchange for a song or dance.
  • People in Ireland and Scotland originally used beets or turnips as lanterns on Halloween.
    • "Stingy Jack," a drunk and deplorable person, cheated death three times and, each time, tricked the devil out of taking his soul.
      • When Jack finally died, he wasn’t allowed into heaven and the devil banned him from hell.
    • An Irish legend says that jack-o’-lanterns are named after Jack who was forced to walk the earth forever with only a coal from hell to light his lantern.
    • The name jack-o’-lantern can also be derived from the night watchman who would light the street lanterns every evening.
  • Immigrants from Ireland and Scotland brought Halloween to the United States in the 1800s.
    • Haitian and African immigrants brought voodoo beliefs about black cats, fire, and witchcraft.
  • Belsnickeling may have proceeded trick-or-treating
    • According to the Library of Congress, the old German-American tradition of belsnickeling, a custom in which children dress up in costumes for Christmas and visit their neighbors, is one possible origin of modern-day trick-or-treating.
  • Pumpkins are actually fruits
  • Keene, New Hampshire, holds the record for most lit jack-o-lanterns on display
    • During the city's annual Pumpkin Fest held on Oct. 19, 2013, a dazzling 30,581 jack-o'-lanterns were lit, breaking the world record.
  • Des Moines, Iowa has another tradition called "Beggars' Night."
    • The concept began back in the late 1930s after Halloween shenanigans often resulted in a wave of vandalism.
      • To encourage more positive Halloween activities, "Beggars' Night" was implemented on Oct. 30, the night before the holiday.
      • On that night, children went door to door to get "treats for eats," but only if they told a joke first. 
      • More than 80 years later, the practice still continues in and around Des Moines making the holiday a days-long affair.
  • Halloween falls on a full moon every 19 years
    • Save the date for 0ct. 31st 2039!
  • Harry Houdini Died on Halloween
    • It was because of a burst appendix and not a trick
  • In 2022, the National Retail Federation estimated that Americans would spend an average of $100 on costumes, candy, decorations, and greeting cards.
  • Jack Nicholsons' divorce inspired a scene in the cult classic "The Shining"
    • It was the typewriter scene... "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"
  • “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble” is from William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
  • Halloween was a night for pranking.
    • The pranks eventually got out of control and in 1933, vandals caused millions of dollars of damage across the U.S., leading many people to refer to it as “Black Halloween.”
  • Michael Meyers was inspired by Captain Kirk
  • The first official mention of trick-or-treating as a Halloween activity in the U.S. was published in the November 1939 issue of "American Home" magazine.
    • Though where trick-or-treating started is still up for debate
  • “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the original Washington Irving short story doesn’t mention Halloween even once.
    • It’s the 1949 Disney movie, “The Headless Horseman,” that makes the connection between the two.
  • The first official Halloween party guide, titled "Halloween: How to Celebrate It," was published in 1897.
  • Even though Halloween was brought to the U.S. by Irish and Scottish immigrants, the rest of Europe didn’t begin celebrating the holiday until decades later.
    • Although many European countries now celebrate the holiday, it hasn't been quite as commercialized as the U.S.
  • From 1905 to 1920, more than 3,000 Halloween postcards were mass-produced.
  • Candied Apples were actually made by mistake when the creator was experimenting with candy.
  • Originally dubbed “Chicken Feed,” candy corn became popular once the Goelitz Company took over production in the late 1800s.
    • It didn't become a staple until the 1950s
  • The most popular Halloween candy is M&Ms!
    • Reese's Peanut Butter Cups come in a close second.

 Check out where we got these fun facts and see if we missed any other interesting ones from CNN and Today!

   Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings, or mirrors.

   The American Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives.

   The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling,” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money. --History