Fun Facts About Halloween

We are at the end of the month of October and we all know what that means…It’s Halloween!!

So without further ado, here are some fun facts about Halloween – your favorite fall holiday!

• Halloween is always celebrated on 31 October.
• Halloween is one of the oldest celebrations in the world, dating back over 2000 years to the time of the Celts who lived in Britain.
• Halloween is also know by other names:  All Hallows Eve, Samhain, All Hallowtide, The Feast of the Dead, The Day of the Dead.
• Halloween in Welsh is ‘Nos Calan Gaeaf’.
• Halloween is correctly spelled as Hallowe’en.
• When Christianity came to England and the rest of Europe, 1 November became “All Saints Day” – a day dedicated to all those saints who didn’t have a special day of their own.  They performed a mass called ‘All hallows mass’ and the night before became known as All Hallows E’en and eventually Hallowe’en or Halloween.
• When the Romans conquered England, they merged Samhain with their own festivals, a harvest festival called Poloma, and a celebration for the dead called Feralia.
• In Mexico, they celebrate El Dia de los Muertos or the Day of the Dead starting the evening of October 31.
• The celebration of Halloween started in the United States as an autumn harvest festival.  In pioneer days, some Americans celebrated Halloween with corn-popping parties, taffy pulls and hayrides.
• It is thought that the colors orange and black became Halloween colors because orange is associated with harvests (Halloween marks the end of harvest) and black is associated with death.
  
• Jack-o-lanterns are an Irish tradition.  In Ireland, oversized rutabagas, turnips and potatoes were hollowed-out, carved into faces and illuminated with candles to be used as lanterns during Halloween celebrations.
• The pumpkin originated in Mexico about 9,000 years ago.  It is one of America’s oldest known vegetables.  Pumpkins generally weigh from 15-to-30 pounds, although some weigh as much as 200 pounds.  The majority of pumpkins are orange, but they also can be white or yellow.  They are rich in vitamin A, beta-carotene and potassium, and their seeds provide protein and iron.
• According to legend, the jack-o’-lantern began with a fellow named Jack, who was too stingy to be allowed into Heaven and too mischievous to join the Devil in hell.  As consolation, the Devil threw Jack a lighted coal, which Jack placed inside a turnip he was eating.  It is said that Jack continues to use the coal to light his path as he searches for a final resting place.
• A pumpkin is really a squash, and comes from the same family as the cucumber.
• About 99% of pumpkins sold are used as Jack O’ Lanterns at Halloween.
• In the late nineteenth century, with the large influx of Irish immigrants into the U.S., Halloween became associated with ghosts, goblins and witches.
• The word “witch” comes from the Old Saxon word “wica”, meaning “wise one.”  The earliest witches were respected dealers in charms and medicinal herbs and tellers of fortunes.
• To meet a witch, put your clothes on inside out and walk backwards on Halloween night.

Have fun out there!!

Fun Facts About Halloween