Halloween Fun And Facts

The history of Halloween Fun is lost in the mists of time but most people agree that its roots are in the pagan festival which marked the end of summer. Samhain, as it was known in Celtic, was celebrated around November 1^st and represented the transition between light and dark, feast and famine and maybe the world of the living and the dead. Later the Catholic Church designated November 1^st as All Saints Day and November 2^nd as All Souls Day. These two Festivals started to be celebrated about one thousand years ago and over time since then, Halloween on October 31^st has become fused with these Christian Festivities. So far not much Halloween fun.

The Christian tradition of giving gifts to the poor on All Saints Day developed into asking for food in return for saying prayers for the dead. And sometimes the poor would disguise themselves and go door to door asking for food. These religious traditions were taken to North America by the waves of immigrants from the seventeenth century onwards and it is from the USA that we get the commercial Halloween that we know now. In fact Halloween Fun is now the second biggest celebration of the year in America, after Christmas, with total consumer spending estimated at 8 billion dollars. In the UK we are a little more modest. According to a report from research firm Mintel, the market here was worth about £240 million last year.  More than one in four of us Brits bought sweets to keep the trick-or-treaters at bay in 2013 and 14% bought some form of fancy dress. How about an amusing unicorn costume from our funzoo animal onesie range? In addition, 10% of UK consumers bought decorations, and a similar number went out to a Halloween party or spooky event. This year there will probably be even more Halloween fun with all kind of spooky events around the country – website skiddle has a useful guide to Halloween fun around the country.