I bet you didn’t know these facts about Halloween.

Pumpkins, scary disguises, amazing decorations and lots of fun… It’s that time of year again, it’s a week till Halloween!

Halloween is a holiday celebrated originally in the United States, which gained a lot of attraction around the world, especially when the traditions eventually came to the UK.

As you know, it is a costume themed day celebrated a day before All Saints day, on the 31st of October. Over the years, it has become a lot more commercialised since the holiday isn’t just celebrated in the US but in the UK too!

We shouldn’t forget that it’s also a great occasion to meet your friends and have fun together, especially after the last 18 months! But what do we actually know about the holiday? Have you ever wondered how much you know about Halloween?

Halloween is filled with traditions, but they didn’t all necessarily come from where you might have thought.

• Some people believe that trick or treating evolved from the ancient Celtic tradition. This is where people put out treats and food to placate spirits that roamed the streets at Samhain. This is a sacred festival that marked the end of the Celtic calendar year.
• During the pre-Halloween celebration of Samhain, bonfires were lit ensuring the sun would return after a long, hard winter. Often Druid priests would throw the bones of cattle into the flames and “bone fire” became “bonfire.”
• Dressing up as ghosts and other spooky creatures is said to have originally come from the ancient Celtic tradition of townspeople disguising themselves as demons and spirits. The Celts believed that disguising themselves this way would allow them to escape the notice of the real spirits.
• According to Irish Legend, Jack O’Lanterns are named after a stingy man named Jack. He tricked the devil several times and was then forbidden entrance into heaven or hell. Jack-o’-Lanterns were originally made and carved from Turnips, Beetroots and Potatoes not Pumpkins.

• Trick or treat “candy” or sweets have become an important part of Halloween celebrating. October 28th is the day of the year that has the highest number of candy or sweets sales.
• The name Halloween is a contraction of All Hallow’s Evening, also known as the night before All Saints Day. Christians around the world have marked the Triduum of All Hallows since the 8th century AD.
• Pumpkins are orange, bur they often come in lots of other colours too. You can find pumpkins that are green, white, red, yellow, blue, even tan. Most pumpkins are orange because of the high amounts of lutein, alpha- and beta-carotene.
• In Britain, most Halloween traditions died out with the rise of Puritanism in the 16th and 17th centuries. Games such as apple bobbing, in which apples floating in a bowl of water are caught in the mouth, are remnants of past rituals.

These fun facts only scrape the surface of the legends that embody the spirit of Halloween. Why not have some fun testing your fellow zombies, superheroes and vampires on what Halloween is really all about?