13 Things You Didn’t Know About Halloween

I am a Halloween connoisseur and have a Ph.D. in witchcraft, and I want to share my knowledge with you. These 12 Halloween Facts and “Did You Know?” tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the holiday: pumpkins, black cats and the latest music. Isn’t that what Halloween is all about?

We’re not entirely sure where Halloween traditions come from.

It’s only natural that the origins of Halloween are somewhat mysterious. Many sources confidently claim that the holiday originated with the celebration of Samhain by the Celts and Druids in Ireland, England and Northern France about 2000 years ago. Later, the Church Christianized the holidays under the names “All Saints’ Day” and “All Hallows’ Eve.” Nice story, but is it true?

Some modern historians argue that there is little connection between Celtic festivals and early Christian customs, with medieval Christian festivals representing the real basis of the holiday. It’s a mess. If you’d like, you can read more about it in my True Halloween Story .

The game “Trick or treat” originated in Canada.

Canada, America’s cap, is the birthplace of trick-or-treating. Calling neighbors on holidays and demanding something has earlier roots in the European tradition of ” swimming “, but it was a Christmas activity. The first mention of Halloween candy in print appeared in a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario in 1911 . From there it slowly spread across the continent. It wasn’t until the late 1930s that it was first mentioned in national publications in the United States, and trick-or-treating didn’t really become widespread until the early 1950s, when it appeared in the Peanuts comic strip and magazine. Peanuts .” Disney cartoon.

Unsuccessful first attempts to congratulate Halloween

Knocking on a door on Halloween and saying “trick or treat” is a common occurrence, but it wasn’t always that way. In the early days of begging in Canada, children tried different phrases to get candy. Here are some of the losers, ranked from worst to best:

• ” Halloween Apples! ” Terrible. who wants an apple for halloween?

• “ Charity please! ” Better. I like the appeal to pathos.

• “ Spit it out! ” Fantastic. Right to the point. Some kids added, “Fork out, fork out, or we’ll break your windows,” which is even better.

Elizabeth Krebs: Halloween’s Naughty Granny

Elizabeth Krebs of Hiawatha, Kansas, is the unsung hero of Halloween, but she didn’t like children. The founder of the Hiawatha Garden Club, Krebs’s favorite thing was her flowers, but in Kansas in the early 1900s, local youth celebrated “Night of Mischief,” the night before Halloween, by running wild through town, inevitably destroying Krebs’ carefully planted plants. flower beds.

Embodying the spirit of courage in the American Midwest, Krebs lovingly fought vandals by organizing the first Halloween parade in US history. Halloween fun in Hiawatha in 1914 included a parade, a costume contest, food and music, all designed to distract young people from destroying Mrs. Krebs’ precious bouquets. The event has caught on, with Halloween parades and parties spreading across the country, so you can thank Mrs. Krebs for your local parade. Or, I guess, thanking the rioting children who trampled on her flowers.

Fears of Halloween candy being weaponized are greatly exaggerated

I check my child’s candy for foreign substances every Halloween even though I know I won’t find anything; The thought of him biting into an apple with a razor blade hidden inside is so terrifying that it defies logic. But that’s not really something to worry about. Despite warnings from the federal government and countless anecdotal reports, there has never been a case of a drug dealer putting LSD, fentanyl or any other illegal drug in children’s Halloween candy. (There was one close call: back in 1959, Dr. William Shine , a Long Island dentist, gave out candy-covered laxatives to children on Halloween for reasons he never explained.) Same with needles and razor blades. There was one case in 2000 of a man hiding needles in Halloween candy, but the trick or treat has been around for over 100 years, so this is an extremely isolated incident.

Halloween : the movie

Released in 1978, John Carpenter’s Halloween inspired the slasher genre, which gained popularity among horror films in the 1980s. It was produced for just $300,000 and grossed over $47 million (about $150 million in today’s money), making it one of the most profitable independent films ever made. Halloween spawned 12 other “official” Halloween movies (though some would argue that Halloween III doesn’t count; it’s set around Halloween but has nothing to do with the other Halloween movies) and thousands of imitators.

Christmas used to be a holiday for “ghost stories”

Ghost stories (and their modern equivalent, horror films) are strongly associated with Halloween culture, but Christmas was actually a celebration of ghost stories in Victorian England.

“Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet around a fire on Christmas Eve, they begin to tell each other ghost stories,” wrote Jerome K. Jerome in 1891. a fictitious ghost story, the tradition has almost died out.

Do Witches/Satanists Sacrifice Black Cats on Halloween?

Until recently, humane societies and animal shelters typically restricted cat adoptions during Halloween, especially black cats. This was partly based on the belief that pagans, Satanists, Druids, witches and/or warlocks adopted dark kittens to sacrifice in incredible Samhain rites.

As great as it would be to live in a world where this happens, it doesn’t happen in our boring reality. Satanists also do not adopt or euthanize black kittens at this time of year. Satanists generally love cats, and they are also very boring, as anyone who has ever been accosted by a Satanist at a party can tell you. The belief is likely based on reports of witches who had black cat acquaintances, which date back to medieval times.

However, there is a non-folklore reason why pet adoption places sometimes restrict the adoption of black cats during Halloween: There are concerns that some people adopt black cats as spooky Halloween decor, only to abandon them on November 1st. However, I couldn’t find a documented case of this happening, so it’s probably just rumors too.

They lie to you about pumpkins

Pumpkin is not a vegetable. This is a fruit. Technically, a pumpkin is a berry .

Pumpkins are a product of the seed structure of a flowering plant, hence the fruit. Botanically, berries are defined as “simple, fleshy fruits, usually containing many seeds.” Like a pumpkin.

Illinois: America’s Pumpkin State

Halloween is in the middle of decorative pumpkin season, motherfuckers , and most of Halloween’s most beloved pumpkins—pumpkins—come from Illinois, our pumpkin state. It’s also tough competition: Illinois grows twice as many pumpkins, both decorative and for pie filling, as second-place California.

Some pumpkins weigh as much as a Toyota Corolla

I don’t mean to be ashamed or anything, but there are people who dedicate their lives to growing huge pumpkins. The largest that ever existed weighed almost one and a half tons . Grown by Italian pumpkin fetishist Stefano Cutrupi, the prize-winning berry weighed 2,702 pounds at the 2021 Great Pumpkin Festival in Peccioli, Italy. (I attend this festival every year.)

All about “The Monster Mash”, the unofficial anthem of Halloween

Songs explicitly related to Halloween have never caught on like Christmas carols, so the closest we have is “The Monster Mash,” an unofficial Halloween anthem. (Okay, maybe Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” comes close.) A product of the monster craze of the 1960s, “Monster Mash” was written and performed by Bobby “Boris” Pickett as a way to show off his monster impersonation and parody skills. “dance songs” that were popular at the time. “Monster Mash” reached number one on the Billboard charts upon its release in 1962 and re-entered the charts in 1970 and 1973.

Pickett continued to record new material into the 2000s, but never recaptured the original magic. Pickett’s subsequent recordings from the 1960s include:

• “Monster Festival”

• “Monster Movement”

• “Blood Bank Blues”

• “Me and my mom”

• “Werewolf Watusi”

• “Monster Swimming”

Pickett’s later recordings include 1985’s “Monster Rap,” 1993’s “It’s Alive” and 2005’s “Monster Slash.”

The Hottest Halloween Trend: Pet Costumes

I looked into the future of Halloween and all I saw was a pug in a dandelion costume. Everyone puts costumes on their pets these days. In 2020, 18% of Americans said they planned to put clothing on their pet, up from “just” 12% in 2012. According to the National Retail Federation, spending on pet costumes approaches half a billion dollars a year.

Almost everyone likes dogs and cats in costumes, but some veterinarians warn against the practice. A spokesman for the British Veterinary Association said: “Dressing up animals or otherwise changing their appearance in unnatural ways is not only unnecessary and potentially harmful, but in some cases can also prevent pets from expressing their natural behavior and using body language to communicate.”

On the plus side, it’s adorable and your cat will love wearing a funny hat, I promise.

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