Facts of life: Halloween

Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve as it was formally called, has roots that reach back thousands of years ago to Celtic lifestyles and religion. The Celts believed that on All Hallows Eve (the day before All Hallows Day, which was the first day of their new year) the spirits of those who had died the previous year would rise up and roam the earth. Lord Samhain, the lord of darkness, would come and search for these spirits and take them to the underworld. Before the days of Soul-cial Networking, finding these spirits proved to be quite a challenge for Samhain at times. Fast-forwarding two millennia later, we see that Halloween has undergone quite a transformation from that primordial affair of All Hallows Eve to become the beloved holiday that it is today. To celebrate Halloween, we’ve listed various facts
and tidbits about it:

-The Irish began the tradition of Jack-O-Lanterns by carving faces into turnips and potatoes. After detecting that an image of William Shatner could not be easily carved into these vegetables/tubers, the substitution of pumpkins was made, and the pumpkin was adopted as the official produce used for Jack-O-Lanterns

-The World’s largest pumpkin on record sits at a hefty 1,725 pounds. (Reportedly, several MLB athletes later approached the pumpkin’s owner to learn more about the “fertilizer” being used for the pumpkin…)

-The most popular candy to top the list for trick-or-treaters are chocolate bars with Snickers sitting at #1; Milky Way continues to develop plans to step out of the shadow of her peanut-y sister.

-Why Black and orange and not something else? Orange is linked to the fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death. Some folks complain that orange and black don’t go well together. I’ll tell you a combo that doesn’t work too well: Plum, Mustard Yellow, and Chlorophyll – even the Utah Jazz eventually picked up on this.

-Oct. 31 in history:
1517- Martin Luther nails his 95 theses on the door of the Schlosskirche (Castle Church) in Wittenburg (After discovering that Scotch Tape simply would not do the trick.)
1892- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is published.
1950- Earl Lloyd becomes the first African-American to play in the NBA. If only the NBA knew …
As the last 2,000 years have injected a lot of fun traditions into Halloween, we can expect that the next 2,000 will do the same.