Halloween

Samhain, on the night of 31 October, has marked the turn from summer to winter on the Irish calendar.

It was one of four seasonal markers in agricultural and pastoral societies. Irish legends describe it as a night when the otherworld, the sí, could open to mortals, but they do not tie it to death and horror.

A historian of medieval Ireland argues that the Halloween of today owes more to a ninth-century papal decision and to American consumerism than to ancient Irish practice.

On 13 May 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to all Christian martyrs. The observance was later moved to 1 November.

Sources differ on who moved it. One account names Pope Gregory III in the eighth century, while another says Pope Gregory IV decreed 1 November as the day for all saints in 834.

The feast became All Hallows Day in English, and 31 October became All Hallows Eve. The church made 2 November All Souls' Day around the year 1000.

The pope likely acted to tidy the liturgical calendar rather than to suppress Samhain, since he knew nothing of ancient Irish seasonal holidays.

In the sixteenth century, Protestant rulers in Britain and Ireland suppressed saints' feast days.

Trick-or-treating probably descends from early All Souls' Day parades in England, where poor citizens received soul cakes in exchange for prayers for the donors' dead relatives. Costumed Scottish guisers also begged for soul cakes.

In 1943 the National Museum of Ireland received a turnip lantern from a schoolteacher near Fintown, County Donegal. She said it was the type always made in that locality around 1900.

Candles were placed inside such turnips, and the lanterns were used to frighten people on the night of 31 October.

The name jack-o'-lantern comes from a folktale about Jack, who was welcome in neither Heaven nor Hell and was destined to wander the countryside with a lantern to light his way.

Turnips were the most common choice, but potatoes, radishes and beets were sometimes carved too.

Root vegetables were hollowed out because metal lanterns were expensive.

Sources differ on where the carved turnip began. The National Museum of Ireland presents it as an Irish Halloween tradition, while a university historian says carved turnips probably originated in England, linked to All Saints' Day and Guy Fawkes Day.

The pumpkin that is prevalent today is an American development of the Irish turnip tradition. Pumpkins were plentiful in North America.

An 1852 Nathaniel Hawthorne story, Feathertop, featured a scarecrow with a carved pumpkin head.

The likely first image of a pumpkin jack-o'-lantern appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1867. An Atlanta Halloween party in 1892 featured lanterns made of pumpkins.

Between the 1920s and 1950s, older begging customs evolved into modern American trick-or-treating.

The National Retail Federation projected record US Halloween spending of $13.1 billion for 2025, up from $11.6 billion in 2024. The previous peak was $12.2 billion in 2023.

Projected spending per person was a record $114.45 in 2025, against the earlier record of $108.24 in 2023.

The 2025 projection split into $4.3 billion for costumes, $4.2 billion for decorations and $3.9 billion for candy.

In 2025, 73% of US consumers planned to celebrate, compared with 72% the year before. The survey of 8,045 consumers ran from 2 to 9 September.

Companies came to mass-produce costumes, decorations and packaged candy.