# How did Halloween get so big? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 30, 2016, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097 "2016-10-30T08:48:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/21 "2016-10-30T19:16:45Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > People like spooky stuff: monsters and skeletons and witches and zombies and bats and all that. > > And, people like dressing up in costumes. > > Halloween is our big, culturally-sanctioned opportunity to indulge those interests. Right, but it’s blown up in retail sales by a factor of Something Large in the last decade or so. I don’t think people are any more interested in dressing up now than they were in, say, 1995. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/22 "2016-10-30T19:17:15Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > it’s ingenuous to call it a holiday. That word you used. I do no think it means what you think it means. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/23 "2016-10-30T19:43:13Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Actually, it’s about half-way between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice and has its origin in pre-history. The Celts celebrated Samhain, and syncretism followed. Bah! Fundimentalist Christians don’t like it because it’s Catholic. 😉 Roman Catholicism: A faith built from bits of every religion it encountered. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/24 "2016-10-30T20:03:52Z")
It is not an official holiday, with bank closings and paid time off. It’s up there with Valentine’s Day, not down there with Arbor Day. Halloween has taken off big in Thailand but really only for adults. It involves mostly bar and restaurant specials. The red-light districts really get into the spirit (heh) of it with slutty-spooky costumes. When we first returned to Thailand in 1994, no one there had ever heard of it save for Thai students like the wife who had studied or otherwise spent time in the West. I remember one of those mid-1990s Halloweens when we were on a city bus in Bangkok, and a couple of Thais who had obviously spent time in the West boarded kit all wrapped in bloody bandages for the occasion, perhaps on their way to a party. The entire bus freaked out. Now it’s widely know but again only for adults. You’ll never see trick-or-treaters running around. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/25 "2016-10-30T20:14:22Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > A much more interesting question is how Christmas got bigger than Easter. > > Think about it: Which event is more central to Christian dogma, the birth of Jesus or the death and resurrection of Jesus? Obviously the latter. The birth doesn’t even come close. > > Yet Easter is just a day, at most. It’s always on a Sunday, so you don’t even get a special day off for it in most places. It certainly doesn’t get a _season_, despite the fact the traditional Christian calendar of holidays has a number of movable feasts all tied to the date of Easter. Christmas, on the other hand, begins in November (earlier if you’re a retailer) and everyone gets special time off for it even if it happens on a weekend. > > Yes, Christmas is a cultural appropriation of the older Midwinter festivals of lights, but Easter’s a cultural appropriation of the older springtime fertility festivals, so they’re even on that count. Yes, Christmas is associated with gift-giving, but so’s Easter, in some families; both of them can just as easily accommodate a special feast, in the usual celebration, so that’s no distinction between them. > > There’s a whole industry around Christmas, with clothing, TV specials, movies, and all. Nothing like that exists for Easter, even though it could. Easter is practically a Hallmark Holiday with eggs and candy for the little kids. > > (You can apply the same logic to Passover vs Hanukkah for the Jews, but there, the answer is obvious: Blame the Christians.) Christmas became heavily promoted because the early church wanted to wean people off the ancient holiday of Saturnalia, which occurred on roughly the same date. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/26 "2016-10-30T21:14:19Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > First off, Halloween is not a holiday, it never was a holiday, and it’s ingenuous to call it a holiday. I’m fairly adamant about this…not nearly as much as my views on, say, libertarianism, or the gross overuse of that one goddam line from The Princess Bride, but it’s up there. From where I stand, there are two requirements for something to be considered a holiday: > > 1. (important) It’s legally recognized. > 2. (really, really important) I get the day off. > > [Note: I am a state employee, so I never have to work during a holiday. Obviously if you’re self-employed or work for a…blech…corporation, your criteria is going to differ somewhat. I dispute your premise strongly and you will agree too as soon as I give you my iron-clad argument. Halloween IS a holiday. Holidays have nothing to do with whether the federal government recognizes it as one (again, Halloween should be one already). Here is a list of Federal holidays: New Year’s Day Martin Luther King, Jr. Day George Washington’s Birthday Memorial Day Independence Day Labor DaySeptember Columbus Day Veterans Day Thanksgiving Day Christmas Day There are only Federal 3 or 4 holidays that are greater or equivalent to Halloween in terms of consumer spending and customs - Christmas, Thanksgiving and the 4th of July. You might make an argument for one of the others but there is no way that President’s Day, Veterans Day or Labor Day rank above Halloween. There are other holidays like Mothers’ Day that also rank above many of the official holidays. Several religions have major holidays that aren’t official holidays either. Halloween just happens to be a very popular secular holiday that never got enough push to make it a day off although it should have. All we have to do is swap it for Columbus Day and everyone is better off. I don’t mean to kill any long-standing Columbus Day _traditions_ (share them if you’ve got them) that so many people hold so dear but that simple fact is that Halloween is infinitely superior. ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/27 "2016-10-30T21:59:06Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > It’s a day where adults are allowed — even encouraged — to be a little childish and irrational and have some fun, and has some heavy duty nostalgia attached. Makes sense to me. Yeah stores allow their employees to dress up on Halloween , I have to go grocery shopping Monday so I am looking forward to see how people dressed up . Happy Halloween! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/28 "2016-10-30T23:09:06Z")
It wouldn’t have got so big if we hadn’t given it all that chocolate and candy. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/29 "2016-10-31T00:26:17Z")
> [@Miss\_Mapp](#): > > It wouldn’t have got so big if we hadn’t given it all that chocolate and candy. Like. ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/30 "2016-10-31T00:32:42Z")
Seems to me that adults just use it as an excuse to go to a party or get drunk. These days, kids just seem to follow along with a tradition more than the idea of getting candy or playing tricks, perhaps because kids get candy often anyway and playing tricks these days gets the police involved. My 7 yr old granddaughter certainly never seems too overly enthused with Halloween, rather more like she’s playing along in the fun of it. Egg a house now and it’s a vandalism charge parents are responsible for. Even just shaving cream on a car door handle is vandalism in most areas which seems odd ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/31 "2016-10-31T01:41:36Z")
> [@HeXen](#): > > Seems to me that adults just use it as an excuse to go to a party or get drunk. These days, kids just seem to follow along with a tradition more than the idea of getting candy or playing tricks, perhaps because kids get candy often anyway and playing tricks these days gets the police involved. My 7 yr old granddaughter certainly never seems too overly enthused with Halloween, rather more like she’s playing along in the fun of it. > Egg a house now and it’s a vandalism charge parents are responsible for. Even just shaving cream on a car door handle is vandalism in most areas which seems odd I have gone to Halloween parties and I didn’t get drunk , I went to have fun , I dressed up as a gangster one time and had a toy machine gun . I think if I did this today the police would had been called . LOL! ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/32 "2016-10-31T03:32:25Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > …oh, yeah, now we have Halloween shops…which show up _really_ early (it was September 30 this year), and immediately after **vanish**. JUST LIKE THAT. Wow! Next thing you know there will be fireworks stores that set up in June in vanish immediately after July 4th. Oh, wait… ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/33 "2016-10-31T04:51:19Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > Wow! Next thing you know there will be fireworks stores that set up in June in vanish immediately after July 4th. Oh, wait… Not the same thing. Where I grew up in West Texas, we had fireworks stands for a couple of weeks before the Fourth of July and New Year’s, just outside the city limits. But now in Honolulu, I’m seeing a BIG-ass Halloween store occupying prime retail space right in Honolulu’s Ala Moana Center, the largest shopping center in Hawaii, seventh largest in the US and the largest open-air shopping center in the world. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/34 "2016-10-31T05:21:25Z")
I’ve always thought of Halloween as a fairly big holiday. Even as a kid it wasn’t just candy and costumes. There was Halloween carnivals, haunted houses, scary stories and scary movies, cool decorations, pumpkin carving, and lots of general fun. This was back in the 80s, so it’s not something that just became big in the last 10-20 years. > [@Derleth](#): > > A much more interesting question is how Christmas got bigger than Easter. > > Think about it: Which event is more central to Christian dogma, the birth of Jesus or the death and resurrection of Jesus? Obviously the latter. The birth doesn’t even come close. > > Yet Easter is just a day, at most. It’s always on a Sunday, so you don’t even get a special day off for it in most places. It certainly doesn’t get a _season_, despite the fact the traditional Christian calendar of holidays has a number of movable feasts all tied to the date of Easter. Christmas, on the other hand, begins in November (earlier if you’re a retailer) and everyone gets special time off for it even if it happens on a weekend. > > Yes, Christmas is a cultural appropriation of the older Midwinter festivals of lights, but Easter’s a cultural appropriation of the older springtime fertility festivals, so they’re even on that count. Yes, Christmas is associated with gift-giving, but so’s Easter, in some families; both of them can just as easily accommodate a special feast, in the usual celebration, so that’s no distinction between them. > > There’s a whole industry around Christmas, with clothing, TV specials, movies, and all. Nothing like that exists for Easter, even though it could. Easter is practically a Hallmark Holiday with eggs and candy for the little kids. > > (You can apply the same logic to Passover vs Hanukkah for the Jews, but there, the answer is obvious: Blame the Christians.) I’ve always assumed Christmas became a big deal around the time when New Year’s celebrations became popular. Since they are so close to each other, I tend to lump them together as one large holiday. I think a lot of people (myself included) tend to treat the last week of the year as one long holiday. How is a single day that always falls on a weekend going to beat out a two part holiday that lasts a whole week? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/35 "2016-10-31T09:53:03Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > For many reasons, it drives me crazy to have to negotiate around gigantic floor stacks of candy for over a month. Wow. I just buy a couple bags a day or two before Halloween. You must get a shit-ton of kids. No closets? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/36 "2016-10-31T11:24:23Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > But now in Honolulu, I’m seeing a BIG-ass Halloween store occupying prime retail space right in Honolulu’s Ala Moana Center, the largest shopping center in Hawaii, seventh largest in the US and the largest open-air shopping center in the world. I don’t know about where the OP lives, but around here, the Halloween shops open up in vacant stores. It might be a vacant store in prime retail space, but it’s not as though the Halloween shops pay rent all year to be open for two months a year in the same space. I suspect this doesn’t happen with fireworks stands for some other reasons- perhaps the same reason I usually see them under tents even when they are operated by the store on the same property. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/37 "2016-10-31T12:22:31Z")
I grew up in Nevada and October 31 is Nevada Day (the day the state was admitted to the union). It was always a day off for everyone when I was a kid. It is still a state holiday. Banks will be closed. The fact that it was also Halloween just made it better. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/38 "2016-10-31T13:18:47Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Wow. I just buy a couple bags a day or two before Halloween. > > You must get a shit-ton of kids. No closets? Uh, to make it clear, the giant stacks of candy are in my local stores, not my house. 🙂 It started in CA before we left - instead of bringing out the candy stocks around mid-October, they started coming out much earlier, often closer to Sept. 1 than not. And were huge, the size of Superbowl beer stacks. And never got any smaller. So we move, and the first October is pretty normal (other than the monster snowstorm that shut down a quarter of the country). Then, as is proving typical, CT followed CA’s lead and the monster stax started appearing, a little earlier each year and a little bigger. This year it was like semi trailers parked in the store aisles. And Mrs. B. still has the ingrained notion that ‘we have to buy candy early because by Halloween all the good stuff has been sold.’ Which may have been true in past years, and is part of the impetus for this massive candy-push that goes on for almost two months, and no doubt doubles or triples the amount of overpriced bag candy sold. ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/39 "2016-10-31T13:26:06Z")
The same secular forces that propelled the commercialization of Christmas are also diving Halloween…sale of costumes, pumpkins/produce, decorations, candy. There’s money to be made and capitalizing on the all the fun is part of the appeal. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2016, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097/40 "2016-10-31T13:54:13Z")
It involves sweets, dressing up/playing pretend and making light of scary things. That’ll get plenty of people interested. Once there’s a critical mass of interest, more piles on in terms of media, social activities, goods which increases interest and attention paid then that increases the incentive to bring more to it, give some things a Halloween theme it otherwise wouldn’t have. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-halloween-get-so-big/770097.md?page=3)