Halloween: Origins and Recent Numbers

The month of October is filled with many things that scream fall: pumpkin spice lattes, homecoming football games, the changing leaves, and, of course, a holiday, Halloween. Halloween, the one night of the year when it’s acceptable for grown adults to walk around the streets in ridiculous costumes and for young children to innocently knock on every door in the neighborhood asking for candy. There are also plenty of superstitions about ghost, death, and even the dark itself.

    With October 31 just around the corner, it’s time to delve into the history of Halloween, and where the idea for such an event came from. History.com states that is it “thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts.” This event was to mark the end of the harvest season and the return of the winter time which often brought with it death.

    After the Roman Empire conquered most of the Celtic lands, the event changed just a little. The celebration instead “commemorated the passing of the dead” and “honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees.” In fact, this is where the tradition of bobbing for apples originated.

    Once introduced to the United States, the holiday morphed from its largely pagan roots to general “public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing.”

    In 1846, a time in which Irish immigrants were emigrating to the United States, the American version of Halloween really began to take shape. It was with this group that “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.” Since then, this celebration has only continued to evolve into more a secular, community based event that can include parades, costumes, parties, and trick-or-treating.

    In my opinion, we have completely lost the original meaning of Halloween and transformed it into just another commercial holiday. In fact, the National Retail Federation (NRF) calculated that, in 2016, the industry reached an 11-year high, raking in $8.4 billion. Further breaking that down, that is approximately $82.93 per consumer who participates in the holiday. This total includes costumes, candy, decorations, and even greeting cards.

    The NRF also reports that approximately $3.1 billion was spent on costumes alone in the year 2016. Business Insider reported that, for Halloween in 2016, the top 10 costumes were as follows from least to most popular: dinosaur, clowns, “Star Wars” characters, Batman, witch, Wonder Woman, pirate, superhero, the Joker, and finally, Harley Quinn.

    Decorations and candy are the other two components of Halloween that will really cost you. The NRF numbers for candy sales totaled $2.5 billion, while decorations totaled $2.4 billion overall.

    Now that we know how the holiday started and how much it will cost us, on October 31, let’s all dress up and go to that Halloween party, hand out candy, or chaperone a younger sibling while trick-or-treating. Most importantly, stay safe!