Halloween Fun Stuff

• Halloween is the 2nd most commercially successful holiday, with Christmas being the first.
• Jack o’ Lanterns originated in Ireland where people placed candles in hollowed-out turnips to keep away spirits and ghosts on the Samhain holiday.
• The movie "Halloween" was made in only 21 days in 1978 on a very limited budget.
• The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.
• Growing big pumpkins is a big-time and serious hobby. Top prize money for the biggest giant pumpkin is as much as $25,000 dollars at fall festivals. The current world record for giant pumpkins is 1446 pounds (that's a lot of pumpkin pies!).
• Of all canned fruits and vegetables, pumpkin is the best source of vitamin A. Just a half-cup of the orange stuff has more than three times the recommended daily requirement.
• 90% of the pumpkin is made up of water.
• “Trick or Treat” originally meant that the person asking for the treat would perform a trick for the amusement of the giver.
• More than 25 million Halloween cards are given away every year, producing close to a gross of $100 million.
• Today in North America, around $3 billion is spent every year on Halloween costumes alone.
• Haunted Houses bring in about half a billion dollars annually.
• Samhainophobia is the fear of Halloween.

Halloween Superstitions - Young and Old

• In 18th-century Ireland, a matchmaking cook might bury a ring in her mashed potatoes on Halloween night, hoping to bring true love to the diner who found it.
• In Scotland, fortune-tellers recommended to eligible young woman that they name a hazelnut for each of their suitors. They would then toss the nuts into the fireplace. The nut that burned to ashes rather than popping or exploding, the story went, represented the girl's future husband.
• Back in the day, if a young woman ate a sugary concoction made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed on Halloween night, legend says she would dream about her future husband.
• At some Halloween parties, the first guest to find a burr on a chestnut-hunt would be the first to marry; at others, the first successful apple-bobber would be the first down the aisle.
• A burning a candle inside a jack-o-lantern on Halloween keeps evil spirits and demons at bay.
• It is believed that if a person lights a new orange colored candle at midnight on Halloween and lets it burn until sunrise, he or she will be the recipient of good luck. 
• You should walk around your home three times backwards and counterclockwise before sunset on Halloween to ward off evil spirits.
• Put your clothes on inside out and walk backwards on Halloween night to meet a witch.