And you thought Halloween was all about Trick or Treat? Read on for some fun facts about Halloween you may not know, and then pass them on!
- People Used to Trick-or-Treat for Food and Drinks – Forget collecting candy, the earliest traces of trick-or-treating were of people dressing up as evil creatures or ghosts and asking for food and drinks. Cheerful, happy costumes were not a thing!
- Trick-or-Treating Became an American Staple Thanks to the Peanuts Comic Strip – It’s hard to trace exactly when trick-or-treating began, but Charles Shulz made sure that it was firmly planted in American culture by depicting it in his comic strip in 1951.
- The Most Popular Halloween Candy in 2021 was Skittles! – While the most popular Halloween candy tends to vary state-by-state, overall, the top three Halloween candies in 2021 were Skittles, Reese’s Cups, and M&Ms!
- You Would Have to Walk 44 Hours to Burn Off the Amount of Candy Calories Consumed on Halloween – It’s estimated that the average kid eats almost 7,000 calories in candy on Halloween. To burn off that amount, you would have to take a walk…for 44 hours!
- Spiderman and Elsa are the Most Popular Costumes for Kids – Be prepared for a bunch of miniature Elsa’s and Spiderman’s at your door, because they were the most popular Halloween costumes (2021). While the exact costume can change, super heros and princesses continually rank as the top choices for trick-or-treaters throughout the years!
- Halloween’s Origin Had Nothing to Do with Candy – While the exact origins of Halloween are unknown, it is tied closely to the Celtic pagan religious holiday or Samhain. On this night, it is believed that the veil between the living and the dead thins. It was the most important of the four fire festivals that happened during the harvest season.
- Don’t Forget to Carve Your Turnip! – The Irish were responsible for bringing the tradition of jack o-lanterns to the United States, but it wasn’t pumpkins they carved! Since there were no pumpkins in Ireland, they would carve turnips instead. The spooky faces and candles inside were used to ward off evil spirits. This makes sense since they created the tradition in conjunction with Samhain.
- The Biggest Pumpkin in the World Weighed 2,624.6 Pounds! – There have been a lot of big pumpkins grown over the years but the 2016 pumpkin grown by Mathias Willemijns from Belgium is the largest ever recorded. Imagine trying to carry that out of the pumpkin patch!
- Hocus Pocus is one of the most popular Halloween movies around. – Starring Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker, Hocus Pocus is consistently one of the most popular PG-rated Halloween movies. It came out in 1993 and is a great blend of spooky and funny.
- Americans Spend Billions on Halloween – While you may not think of it as a holiday where people spend a lot of money, the National Retail Federation said that Americans spent more than $8.8 billion on Halloween in 2021. That’s a lot of candy and costumes!
Go out, have some fun and make it a great day!