Halloween is one of the most captivating and thrilling holidays celebrated by adults and children alike in the United States and Canada. Though the most significant and prominent festival of these countries after Christmas and Easter, Halloween brings forth fun, merrymaking, excitement, and enjoyment. Celebrated on October 31 every year, Halloween is a festival of ghosts and the dead. Right from the bizarre and creative costumes to plotting trick-or-treats to yielding great confectionary bounties, Halloween is a bundle of special treats and rituals. So, while you are preparing for loads of hair raising fun, why not brush up on Halloween trivia facts and tidbits. Here's presenting you some fun and interesting facts about this spookiest holiday of the year - Halloween, in the lines below. Take a sneak peek!
Fun & Interesting Facts About Halloween
Want to know more about the spookiest day of the year? Dig into this article and find some fun and interesting trivia facts on Halloween.
Halloween Trivia
- Next to Christmas, Halloween is the most commercially successful holiday in the United States.
- Ireland is believed to be the birthplace of Halloween, dating back to around 4000 BC.
- The Celtic people consider Halloween as a major holiday as it represents the New Year.
- Halloween is known by several other names, such as All Hallows' Eve, Witches Night, Lamswool, Snap-Apple Night, Samhain, and Summer's End.
- The colors of Halloween are orange and black. While orange is associated with the fall, black, on the other hand, relates to death and darkness.
- Jack-o'-lanterns are the origination of Ireland where people placed candles in hollowed-out turnips to ward off spirits and ghosts on Samhain holiday.
- The Halloween symbol pumpkin is not just found in orange, but also in colors of white, blue, and green; thus, giving people more options for creative and unique carvings.
- The word 'witch' originates from the Saxon word 'wicca', meaning 'wise one'.
- The custom of apple bobbing is believed to have originated from the Roman harvest festival that honors Pamona, the goddess of fruit trees.
- An owl is a popular Halloween image which was considered to be a witch in Medieval Europe. As such, hearing an owl's call was often associated with someone's death in the family.
- Salem at Massachusetts and Anoka at Minnesota are self-proclaimed Halloween capitals of the world.
- The largest Halloween parade in the United States is the Village Halloween parade, held at New York City every year, with about 50,000 participants, drawing over 2 million spectators.
- Halloween is regarded as an unwanted and overly commercial American influence in several countries, including France and Australia.
- The common practice of trick-or-treating, taken to be a fun and enjoyable activity by kids, was actually a form of begging that started in the British Isles in British history. The beggars would move door to door asking for food and clothing, offering to pray for the souls of the dead in exchange.
- Of all the pumpkins, about 99% are used as jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween.
- Halloween is the third biggest party day of the year, after New Year's Eve and Super Bowl Sunday.
- Halloween is the sweetest holiday of the year, beating out Easter, Valentine's Day, and Christmas, with an estimated $ 1.93 billion sale of candy.
- Snickers form the number one choice of candy for Halloween.
- There are numerous places in the US, named with a Halloween theme, some being Candy Town in Ohio, Cape Fear in North Carolina, Frankenstein in Missouri, Pumpkin Bend in Arkansas, Pumpkin Hollow in New York, Scary in West Virginia, Skull Creek in Nebraska, Spook City in Colorado, Tombstone in Arizona, Transylvania County in North Carolina, and Witch Hazel in Oregon.