The Ancient Festival That Wasn't: How Halloween Really Got Its Candy

[THE MYTH] Not so Celtic after all.

• Every October, we hear that Halloween began as Samhain, a Celtic festival of the dead.
• Historians aren't so sure.
• They find little evidence of what the Celts actually did that night.

[MEDIEVAL] Soul cakes for prayers.

• Much of Halloween is medieval and Christian.
• Poor villagers went door to door for soul cakes, in exchange for prayers for the dead.

[THE CANDY] A 1950s invention.

• Candy came much later.
• Until the 1950s, trick-or-treaters got nuts, coins, fruit, or homemade cake.
• Then a campaign by Mars helped make Halloween a candy holiday.

[OUR NUMBERS] More money, not more candy.

• This year, Americans plan to spend $4.1 billion on Halloween candy.
• We adjusted that for candy prices, and it comes to only about 5 percent more candy than in 2019.
• Nearly all the growth is in the price tag.

[THE ANSWER] The newest layer.

• So the candy at your door is no ancient offering.
• It's the newest layer on a holiday that has always borrowed whatever was at hand.