News, Trends and Events - Halloween

TRICK - OR - TREAT?

It's here! It's the scariest celebrated day of the year…"HAPPY HALLOWEEN!", all you ghouls and ghosts! Celebrated yearly in a number of countries on October 31, Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve is a celebration dedicated to remembering the dead, the saints and martyrs and all the faithful departed believers.

Typical Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, attending costume parties, carving pumpkins in jack-o-lanterns, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories and watching horror films.

Would you like to impress your friends and family with some worthless knowledge about Halloween? Here are some fun trivia about Halloween I bet you didn't know…

13 Halloween Facts for Kids…and the Kids in us Adults...!

• Halloween-like celebrations may have started as early as 609 A.D. - 1400 years ago!
• Turnip jack-o'-lanterns were the norm back then...                       

• Boston, Massachusetts, holds the record for the most Jack O-Lanterns lit at once: 30,128!
• The largest pumpkin ever measured was grown by Tim & Susan Mathison from California. Their pumpkin weighed a whopping 2,032 lbs!
• Pumpkins also come in white, blue and green. Awesome for making monster pumpkins!
• Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped candy in the United States.   

• 50% of kids like to get chocolate candy for Halloween, 24% would like non-chocolate candy, and 10% would like gum.
• Halloween is the 2nd biggest holiday after Christmas.
• Black and orange are the colours of Halloween! Orange is a symbol of strength and endurance and stands for the harvest and autumn. Black is typically a symbol of death and darkness.
• Black cats were once believed to protect witches' powers.
• According to tradition, if a person wears his or her clothes inside out and then walks backwards on Halloween, he or she will see a witch at midnight! Do you dare try it?!

• Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead (Días de los Muertos) on November 1st and 2nd instead of Halloween. This special celebration honours family members and friends who have passed away - and is a big celebration of life! People also dress up like ghouls and parade down the street.
• Halloween celebrations in Hong Kong are known as Yue Lan or the "Festival of the Hungry Ghosts", during which fires are lit and food and gifts are offered to placate potentially angry ghosts who might be looking for revenge.