50 Halloween Trivia Facts 2026

History & Origins

• Halloween traces back to Samhain, a Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest, held around 31 October and 1 November.
• The name "Halloween" is a contraction of "All Hallows' Even," the evening before the Christian feast of All Saints' Day on 1 November.
• Large-scale Irish immigration to the United States in the 1840s, during and after the Irish Famine, is widely credited with spreading Halloween traditions across America.
• The custom of trick-or-treating likely descends from souling, a medieval practice of going door to door around All Souls' Day to offer prayers for the dead in exchange for small cakes.
• The ancient Celts are said to have worn masks and disguises at Samhain to avoid being recognized by wandering spirits, an early ancestor of the Halloween costume.
• Halloween 2026 falls on Saturday, 31 October.

Jack-o'-Lanterns & Pumpkins

• According to Irish folklore, the jack-o'-lantern is named after a trickster called Stingy Jack, who is said to have outwitted the Devil and been left to wander with only a burning coal for light.
• The original jack-o'-lanterns were carved from turnips and swedes (beets), not pumpkins.
• Pumpkins replaced turnips once Irish immigrants found them larger, softer to carve and more widely available in North America.
• Pumpkins are native to the Americas, most likely originating in Mexico or Central America, where they were cultivated by Indigenous peoples long before European contact.
• Botanically, a pumpkin is a berry — specifically a type called a pepo, in the same family (Cucurbitaceae) as melons, cucumbers, squash and gourds.
• Pumpkins aren't always orange: white, blue-grey and green varieties are all grown, popular for unusual carving designs.
• Growing giant pumpkins for competition is a serious hobby. At the 2025 Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in California, first prize was paid at $9 per pound, and a separate $30,000 bonus was on offer for any pumpkin that broke the world record.
• The world record for heaviest pumpkin was set in October 2025 by twin brothers Ian and Stuart Paton in the UK: 2,819 lbs 4 oz (1,278.8 kg), also a record for circumference.

Candy & Spending

• US Halloween spending hit a record $13.1 billion in 2025, according to the National Retail Federation — up from $11.6 billion in 2024 and $12.2 billion in 2023.
• Of that 2025 total, Americans spent roughly $4.3 billion on costumes, $4.2 billion on decorations, $3.9 billion on candy and $0.7 billion on greeting cards.
• Average per-person Halloween spending reached $114.45 in 2025, also a record.
• Halloween is often described as the second most commercially significant holiday in the US after Christmas, based on retail spending.
• Reese's Peanut Butter Cups have topped US Halloween candy sales surveys for more than a decade running, according to retailer data from Instacart and candystore.com; M&M's, Kit Kats and Snickers typically follow close behind.

Traditions & Symbols

• Orange and black are Halloween's traditional colours: orange for the autumn harvest, black for the darker half of the year.
• There is no perfect single-word rhyme for "orange" in standard English — a piece of trivia that also applies to the colour of a pumpkin.
• Black cats were once believed to be witches' familiars, protecting or channelling their powers, which is part of why they became associated with Halloween.
• Samhainophobia is the informal term for an intense fear of Halloween.
• Mexico's Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a separate holiday on 1-2 November with its own Aztec and Catholic roots, honoring deceased relatives. It is not the same as Halloween, and in many Mexican cities today the two are celebrated alongside each other rather than one replacing the other.

Common questions