- Halloween, aka All Hallows' Eve, can actually be traced back over 2,000 years to a pre-Christian Celtic festival held around Nov. 1 called Samhain (pronounced "sah-win"), which means "summer's end" in Gaelic.
- The fear of Halloween is known as Samhainopobia.
- Halloween is the 2nd most commercially successful holiday, with Christmas being the first.
- Halloween candy sales average about 2 billion dollars annually in the United States.
- Chocolate candy bars top the list as the most popular candy for trick-or-treaters with Snickers #1.
- Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.
- In the U.S., trick-or-treating became a customary Halloween tradition after was brought over by Irish immigrants in the early 1900s.
- Orange and black Halloween colors actually stem from the pagan celebration of autumn and the harvest. Orange symbolizes the fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death.
- It was once believed that evil spirits could disguise themselves in human form and knock on your door during Samhain asking for money or food. If you turned them away, you would suffer the wrath of the spirits.
- According to an old Celtic myth dressing up as a goblin would fool evil spirits into thinking that you were one of them so that they would not try to take your soul.
- Black cats were considered bad luck during the Dark Ages, when the belief witchcraft was common. Black cats were said to be a witch’s "familiar," or demonic animal that had been given to them by the devil. However, today, in Great Britain, black cats are considered lucky and are sometimes given in token form to British brides on their wedding day.
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