Americans love Halloween. We as a country spend over $5 billion a year
celebrating it. But where did the holiday come from? And how did traditions
like asking strangers for food and dressing up as ghosts develop?

Halloween has its roots in Samhain (pronounced sow-in), an ancient harvest
festival held at the end of the Celtic year. The festival marked the end of
summer and the beginning of the dark wintertime. It was believed the spirits
of the dead returned on this eve to damage crops and play tricks on the
living. It was also believed that the Celtic priests, or Druids, were able
to make predictions about the future, which they did during large bonfire
celebrations where they wore animal skins and sacrificed crops and animals
to the spirits.

In early A.D., Romans came to the Celtic territories of modern day England,
Scotland and Northern France, and were the first people to influence the
celebration of Samhain. They brought their own holidays: Feralia, the Roman
day to honor the dead in late October, as well as another holiday to honor
Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. It is possible that this Roman
influence is the reason apples are given out and bobbed for on Halloween.

By 800 A.D., Christianity spread to the Celtic Territories and brought with
it another holiday, "All Saints Day." Pope Boniface IV, the designator of
All Saints Day, was likely trying to replace Samhain with a similar but
holier holiday meant to honor saints and martyrs. Later on, All Saints Day
was renamed "All Hallows" and thus the day of Samhain (Oct. 31st) began to
be called "All Hallows Eve," and eventually shortened to "Hallowe'en."

All of the holidays that were melded together to create our modern version
of Halloween involved dressing up in one way or another. The celebrators of
Samhain wore animal skins at their bonfire celebrations and those that
observed "All Saints Day" often dressed as saints or angels. Later on men in
Scotland would impersonate the dead on the day, explaining the ghoulish
tradition we still observe.

During the mid 1800's, Irish and English immigrants flooded the United
States and brought Halloween with them. From these immigrants we received
the Halloween traditions we recognize today, however skewed they are now.
For instance, the first trick-or-treaters were far from today's smiling
children with commercialized costumes. They lived in Medieval England, and
practiced "souling," in which poor people would beg for sweet breads, in
return for praying for the families' souls. Later, the immigrants who
brought Halloween to America would develop their own version of
trick-or-treating, but it didn't become popular here until the 1930s.

*1) Halloween Is The Second Highest Grossing Commercial Holiday After
Christmas*

What used to be just a singular holiday with minimal things to purchase has
turned into an entire "Halloween Season." Between decorative lights and lawn
ornaments, elaborate costumes and loads of candy, the average American
spends a pretty penny on this fall holiday. However popular Halloween has
become, the recession has affected spending for this year's spooky night.
Spending is down, according the the National Retail Federation. Shoppers
will spend an average of $56.31 on the holiday compared to $66.54 in 2008.
Some ways people are cutting down include making homemade costumes, using
last year's decorations and buying less expensive candies. For the
children's sake, let's hope everyone doesn't resort to giving out apples and
pennies. Didn't you just hate that as a kid?

*2) Harry Houdini Died On October 31, 1926*

The famous magician was killed (accidentally) by a McGill University student
named J. Gordon Whitehead who was hitting him in the stomach repeatedly as
part of a stunt. A week later he died of peritonitis from a ruptured
appendix. Despite acute appendicitis, Houdini refused to seek medical
treatment.

*3) There's A Phobia For That*

Samhainophobia is an intense and persistent fear of Halloween that can cause
panic attacks in sufferers. Other relevant phobias for this time of year:
wiccaphobia (fear of witches), phasmophobia (fear of ghosts), and
coimetrophobia (fear of cemeteries).

*4) The First Jack-O-Lanterns Weren't Made Out Of Pumpkins*

They were originally hollowed-out turnips. The modern practiced mutated from
the Irish tradition of carving faces of the the dead onto the gourds and
putting candles inside to make them glow. These days your Jack-O-Lantern is
mostly made out of a pumpkin, which most likely came from Illinois--a state
that grew 542 million pounds of pumpkin in 2007.

*5) One Quarter Of All The Candy Sold Annually Is For Halloween Night*

Yes, no matter how much we eat for Christmas and Thanksgiving, Halloween has
corned the market on candy. As a country we consume 20 million pounds of
candy corn a year. Handing out Halloween treats is the perfect excuse to eat
some too, as four-in-ten (41%) adults admit that they sneak sweets from
their own candy bowl. And if you're a kid, hang on to your basket, because
home is where the candy thief is as 90% of parents admit to sneaking goodies
from their kids' Halloween trick-or-treat bags. But whether your stealing
some, handing out some or having yours stolen, chances are you'll get your
hands (or miss getting your hands) on a Snickers bar, it has been the number
1 Halloween candy for years.

Read more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/30/the-history-of-halloween_n_3...

--
“Never doubt that a small group of committed individuals can change the
world. Indeed it is the only thing that has ever changed it”  ~Margaret Mead
=============================
“Hell, there are no rules here -
we're trying to accomplish something.”

(Thomas A. Edison)
=========================
E nihi ka hele, mai ho`opa`a
Travel gently, arrive firmly

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