How seasonal folklore, Christian observances, immigration and popular entertainment shaped a holiday with U.S. spending projected to reach $13.5 billion in 2026.

By LaGuerre Media | History & Culture

Every October, something remarkable happens across America.

Ordinary neighborhoods become landscapes of glowing pumpkins, artificial cobwebs, skeletons, witches, and ghosts. Children spend weeks choosing costumes. Families stock up on candy. Horror movies return to television screens, and stores fill their shelves with decorations long before the leaves begin to change.

Halloween has become so familiar that many Americans rarely question where it came from.

Many traditions behind the holiday took shape long before modern candy rounds or horror movies.

Its roots include Gaelic seasonal traditions and Christian observances honoring saints and the departed. Its modern form developed in North America, with contributions from both the United States and Canada.

It is not simply an ancient festival preserved unchanged.

The story of Halloween is one of immigration, religion, folklore, community traditions, mass entertainment, and eventually an enormous commercial industry.

Older Roots: Samhain and the Changing Seasons

Important strands of Halloween history lead to Samhain, a Gaelic festival associated with the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. Ireland and Gaelic-speaking communities in Scotland and the Isle of Man developed their own related traditions.

For farming communities, the arrival of winter carried serious consequences. Crops had to be harvested, animals prepared for colder months, and food supplies stored. The coming darkness was not merely symbolic.

The National Museum of Ireland describes Samhain as marking the first day of winter on November 1, with much of the celebration taking place the evening before. Later Irish customs included feasting, games, disguises and beliefs about returning spirits. National Museum of Ireland

But there is an important historical distinction: evidence about early Samhain, later folklore and modern Halloween comes from different periods. A custom recorded in the nineteenth or twentieth century is not, by itself, proof of an identical ancient ritual.

Bonfires and supernatural stories became associated with the season, but it would be misleading to say that ancient people practiced modern trick-or-treating. Halloween developed through many changes, rather than following a single, unbroken script. NASA Earth Observatory’s historical overview

Fire, Disguises and Folklore

Many familiar Halloween themes appear in later seasonal traditions: concealment, mischief, uncertainty and the possibility that an unexpected visitor might not be what they seemed.

The National Museum of Ireland’s folklife collections document homemade masks and customs in which disguised visitors entertained their neighbors. Stories associated the night with the dead and other supernatural beings. Games involving fruit and nuts could be used to predict romance or marriage. These are records of folk belief and custom, not evidence that supernatural events occurred. National Museum of Ireland

Such traditions gave people ways to mark the changing season, share food and stories, and step outside ordinary daily life.

They also help explain why Halloween cannot be reduced to a single activity. It has been a time for remembrance and religious observance, but also for games, jokes, courtship and community gatherings.

How Christianity Helped Give Halloween Its Name

Halloween was not born with that name.

As Christianity spread through Europe, religious observances honoring saints and the dead became associated with the same season.

All Saints’ Day came to be observed on November 1 in much of Western Christianity. In the Catholic calendar, November 2 is All Souls’ Day, when the faithful departed are remembered in prayer. These observances have their own religious history and meaning. Vatican: All Saints and All Souls

The evening before All Saints’ Day was known as All Hallows’ Eve.

Over time, the expression was shortened to Halloween.

Christian observances and older local customs existed alongside one another and sometimes influenced the way communities celebrated. The precise historical relationship between Samhain and later Christian festivals remains a subject of scholarly discussion.

It is too simple to describe the church as merely renaming Samhain. Over time, religious observances and local customs contributed different elements to the season.

Halloween was gradually becoming something larger than any single tradition.

How Halloween Crossed the Atlantic

Halloween did not suddenly appear in America as a fully developed holiday.

European settlers brought different customs, religious beliefs, and seasonal celebrations to North America. Halloween traditions were not equally accepted everywhere, especially in communities that rejected festivities they considered superstitious.

One of the most important turning points came during the nineteenth century.

Irish immigration, including the large migration associated with the Great Famine beginning in the 1840s, brought Halloween traditions into many American communities. Library of Congress: Irish immigration

Scottish immigrants also carried related folklore and seasonal customs.

Families continued practices involving costumes, pranks, games, storytelling, and gatherings.

As immigrants settled in American cities and towns, their customs mixed with existing harvest celebrations.

The holiday slowly moved beyond individual immigrant communities. The Massachusetts Commonwealth Museum traces the influence of Irish customs and notes an 1884 Boston newspaper article linking Halloween with Ireland. Commonwealth Museum

How the Jack-o’-Lantern Became a Pumpkin

One of Halloween’s best-known symbols has a predecessor made from a different vegetable.

In Ireland and Scotland, people carved faces into turnips and other root vegetables and placed lights inside them. Folklore connected lanterns with wandering figures such as Jack, the trickster said to be welcome in neither heaven nor hell.

The National Museum of Ireland holds a plaster model based on a turnip lantern received in 1943. Its donor described the design as one made near Fintown, County Donegal, around 1900. That is useful evidence of an established local custom, not a surviving lantern from ancient Samhain. The museum describes the pumpkin jack-o’-lantern as an American development of the Irish tradition. National Museum of Ireland: Ghost turnip

American pumpkins offered a roomy, practical alternative for carving. Over time, the glowing orange jack-o’-lantern became one of Halloween’s most recognizable decorations.

Halloween in the 1800s: Parties, Games, and Mischief

By the late nineteenth century, Halloween was developing into a recognizable American celebration.

But early Halloween parties were not necessarily dominated by monsters or horror.

Many gatherings featured dancing, food, seasonal games, and attempts to predict the future.

One popular activity involved bobbing for apples. Other games were supposed to reveal clues about marriage or romance.

Young people exchanged stories about ghosts and haunted places, while costumes and disguises allowed participants to escape their ordinary identities for an evening.

Practical jokes also became strongly associated with Halloween.

Unfortunately, some pranks escalated into vandalism.

In certain communities, Halloween became a night when property owners worried about damaged fences, overturned objects, and other destructive behavior.

By the early twentieth century, newspapers, schools, and community organizations were increasingly encouraging organized Halloween activities.

The goal was simple: preserve the fun while reducing the trouble. Historical newspapers collected by the Library of Congress show how parties, games and public celebrations changed over time. Library of Congress: Halloween traditions

That effort helped shape the family-centered holiday Americans know today.

When Did Halloween Become Mainstream in America?

Halloween’s rise did not happen in a single year.

Its modern popularity developed across several stages.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, neighborhood parties, school celebrations, newspapers, and local organizations helped make Halloween more widely recognized.

During the 1920s and 1930s, many communities organized parades and supervised festivities.

The expression “trick or treat” has an important Canadian history. The University of British Columbia’s Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles records variants of the Halloween chant in Ontario newspapers in 1917, and the familiar wording in an Alberta report in 1927. These are early written records, not proof that one town invented every part of the custom. UBC: “trick or treat”

A major expansion of child-centered Halloween celebrations occurred after World War II.

The United States experienced a baby boom, suburban neighborhoods expanded, and families increasingly embraced organized activities for children.

By the 1950s, trick-or-treating was becoming a familiar national custom.

Alongside parties and adolescent mischief, children dressed as ghosts, cowboys, princesses and monsters went from house to house collecting treats. These traditions overlapped; one did not replace all the others overnight.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History notes that homemade foods, fruit, coins, and small toys were once common Halloween offerings.

Individually wrapped candy grew increasingly important as manufacturers recognized a valuable national market.

By the 1970s, packaged candy had become central to the trick-or-treat experience. Smithsonian National Museum of American History

Halloween had become mainstream not because of one invention, but because immigration, schools, suburban life, advertising, and entertainment reinforced one another.

Books, Radio, Television, and Movies: The Entertainment Revolution

Long before television, frightening stories helped preserve the atmosphere of Halloween.

Ghost stories were passed between generations. Folk tales warned listeners about mysterious strangers, haunted houses, wandering spirits, and creatures that appeared after dark.

Books expanded the popular imagination.

Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, published in 1820, gave American literature one of its most enduring versions of the Headless Horseman. The story’s Hudson Valley setting also gives New York a lasting place in the country’s ghost-story tradition. Library of Congress

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula helped shape the broader horror tradition, even though they were not written specifically for Halloween.

In the twentieth century, radio brought suspense into American living rooms.

Suspense programs demonstrated how a creaking door, an unseen footstep or a voice in the darkness could frighten audiences without showing a single image. Radio made the listener’s imagination part of the performance.

Movies and television gave Halloween a wider stage. Disney’s animated short Trick or Treat, featuring Donald Duck and his nephews, opened in theaters on October 10, 1952. It was a theatrical cartoon, not originally a television special. Disney D23

Later, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, first broadcast on October 27, 1966, became a seasonal television favorite. Charles M. Schulz Museum

Horror movies also helped transform October into an entertainment season.

John Carpenter’s 1978 film Halloween gave the holiday a new place in modern horror culture. Its story placed a terrifying intruder in a familiar neighborhood on Halloween night. John Carpenter’s official film page

Other popular horror franchises and televised marathons turned scary entertainment into a recurring October ritual.

By the late twentieth century, Halloween was no longer simply a celebration observed on one evening.

It had become a season.

And the entertainment industry helped make it happen.

The Business of Being Scared: Halloween Spending in 2026

According to the National Retail Federation’s September 2026 survey, conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, U.S. Halloween spending is projected to reach $13.5 billion, compared with its $13.1 billion estimate for 2025.

The survey reports planned spending of $115.14 per person, with 74% of consumers planning to celebrate. It surveyed 7,889 consumers September 1-9. These are spending intentions, not a final tally of completed purchases. NRF’s 2026 survey release

NRF’s published category estimates are:

NRF reports these rounded categories separately from its $13.5 billion overall estimate; the displayed category figures add to $13.6 billion.

The season is also beginning early for many shoppers: 49% said they planned to start in September or sooner. NRF: Halloween data and trends

A holiday associated with one night now influences shopping, entertainment and neighborhood decorating for weeks.

Where Halloween Ranks Among America’s Spending Holidays

Halloween is sometimes described as America’s second-biggest commercial holiday after Christmas. That claim is too broad.

There is no single official ranking that captures every dollar spent on every holiday using identical methods. NRF’s 2026 surveys put several individual celebrations above Halloween:

These are selected spending-intention surveys released before each occasion, not a complete ranking of U.S. holidays or an audit of what shoppers ultimately spent. They also cover different purchasing categories.

NRF separately forecasts $1.013 trillion in retail sales during November and December 2026. That is a broad two-month retail forecast, not a measurement of Christmas gifts alone, so it should not be placed on the same footing as an individual-holiday survey. NRF’s October 27 economic outlook

Halloween remains a substantial spending occasion. But its survey total should not be treated as a complete measure of every haunted attraction, party, tourism visit or other activity connected with the season.

Why Americans Continue to Love Halloween

For many Americans, Halloween offers something different from other major holidays.

For people who celebrate it as a secular occasion, it can offer a gathering that does not revolve around an elaborate family dinner or an exchange of expensive gifts. Religious views about Halloween vary, and not everyone takes part.

Participation can be simple.

A person can carve a pumpkin, watch a scary movie, decorate a porch, wear a costume, or hand out candy.

Children may enjoy becoming imaginary characters, while teenagers and adults can join in costumes, group activities and scary entertainment. The attraction differs from person to person.

Halloween also gives neighborhoods a rare opportunity to interact.

On ordinary evenings, people may pass neighboring homes without ever stopping.

On Halloween, those same neighbors open their doors to children, share candy, admire costumes, and exchange greetings.

Whatever the differences between modern Halloween and older celebrations, gathering with other people remains part of its appeal.

It brings people together during a changing season.

Why a Frightening Story Can Be Fun

There is an interesting difference between actual danger and the excitement of a frightening story.

A haunted house attraction, suspenseful movie, or ghost story creates uncertainty in a setting where the audience generally expects to remain safe.

A sudden noise or unexplained shadow can produce fear, followed by relief.

Some people enjoy sharing those emotions with friends and family. Others do not enjoy being frightened, even when they know a story is fiction.

But successful horror does not always depend on loud surprises or frightening creatures.

Sometimes the strongest suspense comes from what is not shown.

An upstairs door opens.

Footsteps sound in an empty hallway.

An object disappears from a table.

The imagination begins filling in the gaps.

This is one reason ghost stories continue to succeed across generations and technologies.

For a storyteller, leaving room for the imagination can be more effective than explaining every shadow.

From Samhain to the Modern American Neighborhood

Halloween has changed dramatically over the centuries.

Older seasonal folklore contributed stories about darkness, spirits and encounters with another world.

Religious traditions contributed its name and additional customs.

Irish and Scottish immigrants helped bring older celebrations to America.

Communities added organized family entertainment, while Canadian and U.S. traditions helped shape modern trick-or-treating.

Books, radio, movies, and television expanded its reach, while businesses helped turn it into a major commercial event.

Yet beneath the costumes, advertisements, and elaborate decorations remains a remarkably simple tradition.

People gather on a dark autumn evening to share stories, enjoy a little harmless fear, and celebrate the strange possibilities that appear when ordinary life makes room for imagination.

The bonfire, the turnip lantern and the glowing pumpkin belong to different chapters of that changing story, not to one custom frozen in time.

And after all these centuries, people still love a good ghost story.

A note from David: On Halloween Day, I’ll be posting a fun Halloween short story that I think kids will enjoy. I hope you’ll come back and read it with your family!