Is Halloween the same as Dia de los Muertos?

No. Dia de los Muertos runs October 31 to November 2 and honors the dead, but it is a separate Mexican observance with its own roots, not a version of Halloween.

Where does the name Halloween come from?

It is a Scots contraction of All Hallows' Even, the evening before All Saints' Day, with the shortened form attested in the 1560s.

Why do people carve pumpkins on Halloween?

The jack-o'-lantern comes from an Irish tradition of carving turnips to ward off the spirit Stingy Jack; Irish immigrants switched to the easier-to-carve American pumpkin.

Did Halloween come from a pagan festival?

Partly. Britannica describes it as a blend of the Gaelic festival Samhain and Christian feasts of the dead, and historians dispute how much of it is truly pagan rather than Christian in origin.

Halloween

Next celebratedSunday, October 31, 2027

There were no costumes and no candy in the first printed "trick or treat": the words were a threat, tied to mischief, decades before they meant a child holding open a pillowcase. October 31 is what became of them.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEOctober 31

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYSeasonal

SUBCATEGORYFall

ORIGIN

Historical Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

“Not a pagan festival that survived intact, but a blend of Gaelic and Christian roots reshaped in America.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A Gaelic festival and a Christian feast, fused over centuries.

Halloween has no single founder. Britannica describes it as a blend that developed partially from the pre-Christian Gaelic festival of Samhain but derived largely from the Christian feasts of the dead, with All Saints' Day fixed on November 1 making October 31 All Hallows' Eve. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried the customs to the United States in the 19th century, where costumes, trick-or-treating, and the pumpkin jack-o'-lantern took their modern form in the 20th.

Read the Britannica historyvia britannica.com

INTRO

How a Canadian prairie town gave us "trick or treat"

The phrase that defines an American October was first put in print in Canada. On November 4, 1927, the Lethbridge Herald in Alberta described young tormentors at the back door and the front, demanding edible plunder with the words "trick or treat."

There were no costumes or candy haul in that first account. The words were a threat, tied to mischief, decades before they meant a child in a costume holding open a pillowcase.

That gap is the real story of Halloween. The version Americans know, the doorbells and the pumpkins, is barely a century old. The roots underneath it run far deeper, and far stranger, than a single night of candy.

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ORIGINS

Halloween history

INTRODUCTION

Long before the candy, there was a fire in the dark. The ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain marked the end of harvest and the start of winter in Ireland, around the first of November. People believed the boundary between the living and the dead grew thin that night.

How much of modern Halloween actually descends from that festival is one of history's livelier arguments. The popular story says a pagan rite simply survived and got a Christian coat of paint. The record is messier than that.

Historian Ronald Hutton has pushed back hard on the tidy version. The medieval records, he argues, furnish no evidence that November 1 was a major pan-Celtic festival. Britannica frames Halloween instead as a blend, not a pagan holiday that survived intact.

CHAPTER 01

The church builds a feast on November 1

The Christian calendar gave the night its name. In 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to all martyrs, founding the feast that became All Saints' Day.

The November date came later. Pope Gregory III, who reigned from 731, gave the first evidence of it when he dedicated a chapel to all the saints on November 1. Pope Gregory IV ordered the feast observed across the church in 837.

All Saints' Day was also called All Hallows. The evening before it was All Hallows' Eve. Scots clipped that into "Hallowe'en" by the 1560s, and the modern name was set.

CHAPTER 02

Soul cakes and turnip lanterns

Two old customs point straight at trick-or-treating. In Britain and Ireland, the poor went "souling," begging door to door for soul cakes in return for prayers for the dead. Irish "mumming" sent costumed celebrants performing for food and drink.

The glowing lantern came from Ireland too. People carved frightening faces into turnips to ward off Stingy Jack and other wandering spirits, a folk practice older than any pumpkin.

CHAPTER 03

The holiday becomes American

Halloween barely registered in colonial New England, where rigid Protestant belief left little room for it. It took hold first in Maryland and the southern colonies.

The change came with people. Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine of the 1840s carried the customs across the Atlantic, and the holiday spread nationally. Finding the native pumpkin far easier to carve than a turnip, they swapped one for the other, and the jack-o'-lantern we know was born.

BY THE NUMBERS

Halloween by the Numbers

$13.1B: US Halloween spending, 2025
$114.45: Spent per US shopper, 2025
73%: US consumers planning to celebrate
73.1M: US children who could trick-or-treat
1.44B lbs: US pumpkins grown, 2024

TIMELINE

Timeline

Feast of all martyrs founded

Pope Boniface IV dedicates the Pantheon in Rome to all martyrs, beginning what becomes All Saints' Day.

First evidence of November 1

Pope Gregory III dedicates a chapel to all the saints on November 1, the earliest sign of the date.

All Saints' Day made universal

Pope Gregory IV orders the November 1 feast observed across the church, fixing October 31 as All Hallows' Eve.

Irish famine immigration

Irish families fleeing the Great Famine carry Halloween customs to the United States, where the holiday spreads.

Trick or treat in print

The Lethbridge Herald in Alberta prints the phrase trick or treat for the first known time.

Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF

A Philadelphia campaign sends children collecting coins for UNICEF, becoming a long-running youth effort.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Halloween

Americans spend nearly a billion on pet costumes

US shoppers are projected to lay out about $0.86 billion dressing up their pets for Halloween in 2025, a slice of the holiday's record total, according to the National Retail Federation.

Robert Burns was not first to the poem

Burns wrote his famous poem "Halloween" in 1785, but fellow Scot John Mayne of Dumfries had written a Halloween poem in 1780, five years earlier, according to its publication record.

Kids once raised UNICEF money instead of candy

Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF began in Philadelphia in 1947, asking children to collect spare change for the agency, and Britannica calls it the longest-running youth engagement campaign in the United States.

Halloween candy tops $7 billion a year

US Halloween chocolate and candy sales reached $7.4 billion in 2024, about 18 percent of all confectionery retail sales that year, per the National Confectioners Association.

The name is Scottish, not American

"Halloween" is a Scots contraction of "All Hallows' Even," the evening before All Saints' Day. The shortened form is attested in a Scottish context in the 1560s, per the Online Etymology Dictionary.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love Halloween

ECONOMY

Costumes alone draw $4.3 billion a year.

The spending is not just candy: Americans are forecast to buy about $4.3 billion in costumes and $4.2 billion in decorations in 2025, per the National Retail Federation. The night anchors a retail season that ripples through the fall economy.

LANGUAGE

Its name preserves a Christian calendar

Halloween is literally All Hallows' Eve, the night before All Saints' Day on November 1. The secular costume holiday still carries the structure of a medieval feast in its name.

MIGRATION

It is a record of who came to America

The holiday took national hold only after Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century brought its customs west. Its door-to-door rituals and folk traditions trace a path of people, not just folklore.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate Halloween

Carve a pumpkin with the backstory

Hollow out a pumpkin and cut a face, the American descendant of the Irish turnip lantern. Tell whoever is helping about Stingy Jack while you scoop.

READ

Read the original Halloween poem

Robert Burns set the holiday's folk customs into verse in 1785. Reading a few stanzas is a quick way to meet the holiday as Scotland knew it.

COLLECT

Collect for UNICEF, not just candy

Revive the 1947 tradition by having children gather coins for a cause alongside their trick-or-treating. It turns the night's oldest ritual toward something beyond the haul.

HOST

Host a screening of classic horror

Gather friends for a night of films that lean into the eerie spirit of All Hallows' Eve. Build the evening around the mood the holiday has always traded on.

LEARN

Learn how Dia de los Muertos differs

Read up on the separate Mexican observance that shares the early-November dates. Knowing the distinction makes both traditions clearer.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Halloween?

1 / 8

Where was the phrase "trick or treat" first recorded in print?

Answer

No. Halloween is a cultural observance, not a federal or public holiday, so banks, schools, and offices stay open and it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

10sources

7primary records

5independently dated

Primary records

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Halloween

Authoritative overview of the holiday's blended Gaelic and Christian origins and traditions.

View source

Encyclopaedia Britannica

All Saints' Day

The papal chronology that fixed the November 1 feast Halloween is the eve of.

View source

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Samhain

The ancient Gaelic harvest festival linked to Halloween's pre-Christian roots.

View source

National Retail Federation2025-09-18

Halloween Spending to Reach Record $13.1 Billion

2025 forecast of US Halloween consumer spending and participation rates.

View source

U.S. Census Bureau2025

Halloween: October 31, 2025 (Facts for Features)

Federal counts of US children and households tied to trick-or-treating.

View source

USDA Economic Research Service2024

Pumpkins: Background & Statistics

US pumpkin production figures and the leading growing states.

View source

National Confectioners Association2025-09-29

Consumers Turn to Chocolate and Candy to Enhance Halloween Celebrations

2024 US Halloween candy sales and their share of confectionery retail.

View source

Additional coverage

HISTORY

Halloween: Origins, Meaning & Traditions

Souling, Irish-famine immigration, and the holiday's spread across America.

View source

HISTORY

How Jack O'Lanterns Originated in Irish Myth

The Stingy Jack folktale and the turnip-to-pumpkin lantern tradition.

View source

Global News2019

The origins of Trick or Treat: Lethbridge home to a piece of Halloween history

The 1927 Alberta newspaper that first printed the phrase trick or treat.

View source

Related holidays

SUN

Oct 2026

Religion

Samhain

Get ready for a spooky and magical night as we honor the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, marking the end of harvest season and the beginning of winter.