Halloween – a brief guide for kids!

All across the world, people celebrate Halloween on the 31st of October. But what is Halloween? Where does the holiday come from? In this short guide and fact file, we answer all of your questions!

What does Halloween celebrate?

There is a long tradition of people celebrating on October 31st. The name ‘Halloween’ is actually a shortened version of the original holiday’s name ‘All Hallows’ Eve’. This was, and still is, the night before All Saints’ Day.

All Saints’ Day is a Christian festival held in honour of all the saints found within the Christian religion, and is celebrated by people praying to God, to particular saints that they feel have helped them in their life and by eating special foods.

All Hallow’s Eve is the evening before All Saints’ Day. This was traditionally a time for adults to give children gifts of food, often sweets, and to scare off evil spirits and demons before the day of celebration for the saints. To help scare off evil spirits children would dress up in costumes and make themselves scary to frighten any bad demons away. This is where we get our modern Halloween traditions of dressing up in costumes and giving gifts of sweets to children through trick or treating.

Some fun facts about Halloween

The traditional colours of Halloween are orange and black. Black represents evil spirits and death, and orange represents the autumn harvest and the leaves changing colour around this time of year.

Halloween is considered to be the second most popular holiday after Christmas.

Although many people think that Halloween is a holiday for children, a surprising amount of adults enjoy it too, with many people having Halloween parties, and lots of spooky events happening around the 31st of October to attend.

Originally, people didn’t make lanterns out of pumpkins, they used turnips and potatoes instead!

In America, 40% of Americans dress up in a costume, and over 70% hand out sweets to children who trick or treat.

Although people give out chocolate and sweets, many people sneak food from the bowl for themselves too!

Halloween events at Family Island Resort

We have a whole host of family friendly events planned for Halloween, and we aim to have the best Skegness Halloween events for all the family! For more information, please take a look at our events calendar