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Halloween is here, and if you’ve got little ones at home, it is a good idea to make them aware of some fun facts associated with the festival. A lot of people only know Halloween as a holiday where you dress up and go “trick or treating”. But there’s a lot more to it! Halloween is a unique holiday — you don’t often come across a festival that includes spooky elements coupled with fun!
You can share these fun facts with your children on Halloween and set the mood for the whole night. They’re exciting, engaging, and most importantly, contribute to a good amount of general knowledge! So, without further ado, let’s look at a bunch of fun facts about Halloween to tell your kids:
1. How It All Began
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Your child probably knows that it’s Halloween, but do they understand why it’s celebrated? If not, then now is the time to take a fun history lesson for them.
Halloween is celebrated for different reasons in different cultures. For example, the Celtics back in the day would celebrate a festival known as Samhain. This was celebrated to mark the end of their harvest season, and it was also believed to be the day when the dead would visit the earth. So on this day, they would light bonfires and stay awake at night. Additionally, they would dress up as ghosts or otherworldly creatures themselves, believing that the real spirits wouldn’t attack them if they looked like ghosts.
Another belief is that Halloween is the shorter version of “All Hallow’s Eve”, which happens to be the night before “All Saint’s Day”. All Saints’ Day, also known as The Feast Of All Saints, is celebrated in honor of the saints of the Christian church. So, when you celebrate Halloween, you’re essentially celebrating the eve before All Saint’s Day.
Today, Halloween is commonly associated with dressing up in costumes, partaking in fun activities like trick or treating, indulging in lovely food, carving pumpkins, and getting together!
2. The Colors Of Halloween
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It’s worth noting that orange and black are the two most significant colors of Halloween. There’s a reason behind why people go crazy with orange and black. Orange signifies harvest, and as we had mentioned before, Halloween is believed to be a celebration of the harvest season and new beginnings. Autumn is also associated with fall and the color of leaves changing. Similarly, on Samhain, bonfires were lit, and this too is a shade of orange. Black, on the other hand, signifies death, darkness, or the night. It is also symbolic of winter.
3. Jack-O’Lanterns Weren’t Always Carved From Pumpkins
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Pumpkins are a hot favorite when it comes to carving Jack-O’Lanterns. However, it wasn’t always so. Previously, Jack-O’Lanterns were cut on turnips, beetroots, or potatoes. Here’s how the tradition came about: Jack, a man known for his habit of playing tricks and being mischievous, had tricked the Devil. Soon after Jack died, the Devil doomed him to wander the nights on earth and gave him a piece of coal to light his way. Jack-O’Lantern is derived from the phrase “Jack of the lantern”. Now in the living world, people would keep carved scary faces on turnips and place lights inside so they could scare away the wandering Jack! But why turnips? Because this tradition originated in Ireland, where they didn’t have pumpkins. Pumpkins came into the picture much later when the Irish brought the tradition to America.
4. Trick Or Treat Was Derived From “Souling”
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Back in the day, poor people would knock on doors on All Saints’ Day (or on the eve of All Saints’ Day) and would offer to pray for the souls of the dead. The family members would, in return, offer them some food or treats. Today, it has turned into trick or treating, where kids would dress up for Halloween and knock on doors, asking for treats.
5. The Idea Behind Dressing Up In Costumes
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Ever wondered why Halloween is so big on costumes, that too, spooky ones? There’s a perfectly good reason why people dressed up on Halloween in the yesteryears. As we mentioned before, it was believed that the veil between the dead and the living was blurred on Halloween night. So, ghosts and spirits could wander the streets in the living world. People dressed up like ghosts, spirits, and otherworldly beings believing that the real spirits would leave them alone, mistaking humans to be one of them!
6. Finding Future Romantic Prospects!
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On Halloween night, girls named hazelnuts after the boys they liked and threw them into the fireplace. They believed that if the hazelnut burned, it meant that the boy they thought of would become their future husband, and if it exploded before burning, the opposite would happen. In some other traditions, young women would peel the skin of an apple in one strip, after which they would throw it over their shoulders. The skin would fall on the ground and take the shape of a particular alphabet, and this alphabet, they believed, would be the first letter of the name of their future husbands!
From being a sort of religious holiday (All Hallow’s Eve) back then to today being a day filled with fun, mischief, and laughter, Halloween is one of the most exciting holidays, especially for children. We hope you and your children love these facts! Do you know any other interesting facts about Halloween? Let us know in the comments below!
