The origin of Halloween

Many of the traditions associated with Halloween can be traced back about 2,000 years to a Celtic festival called Samhain (pronounced sow-win). It was celebrated in Ireland, Britain, and parts of continental Europe. Bonfires were lit and rituals were performed to mark the end of the annual harvest and the start of winter. It was also a time to honour the dead.

So far so good.

As Christianity spread through Celtic lands, some Samhain traditions gradually became intertwined with the Christian observances of All Saints’ Day on November 1 and All Souls’ Day on November 2. The evening before All Saints’ Day became known as All Hallows’ Eve, which was eventually shortened to Halloween.

All these centuries later, it’s still an annual event, but with no recognised religious connotations. Why has it endured?

What Halloween has become

Mixed in with the Celtic traditions was a belief that the boundary between the physical and spirit worlds became permeable at Samhain. It’s been speculated that this may have been borne of a primitive uneasiness as the daylight hours grew shorter at that time of year.

Centuries later, people in Ireland and Scotland started carving frightening faces into turnips and other root vegetables, with candles placed inside them. It’s believed they thought these would scare wandering spirits away and prevent them from harming the living. They also wore masks and dressed up in costumes to attempt to hide themselves.

These practices may have felt comforting, but scary-faced vegetables and disguises wouldn’t have offered any occult protection if there had been any actual risk. They were superstitious practices designed to alleviate unfounded fears.

In medieval England and Ireland, another tradition developed at this time of year known as souling. Poor people would go from door to door and receive food, money, ale, or “soul cakes” in return for prayers for the souls of the householders’ dead relatives. The custom was later taken up by children and became one of the precursors of modern trick-or-treating.

Over the centuries, these practices have morphed into the candle-lit pumpkins and other decorations we know today, together with dressing up in Halloween costumes, and children trick-or-treating to stuff themselves with sugar. 

The Americanization of Halloween

Boomers growing up in the UK will remember that Halloween was not a thing at that time. Many people celebrated (and still do celebrate) Bonfire Night every November 5 with fireworks, but that commemorates an entirely different event (the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605). 

Mass-produced Halloween decorations and costumes became widely available and affordable in America in the mid-20th century, and today Halloween has grown into a $13.5 billion industry there, with 74% of US consumers planning to participate in it in 2026.

American-style Halloween gradually spread to other English-speaking countries after that, including back to the UK, with consumer spending rising from about £12 million in 2001 to an estimated £537 million in 2025 (an astonishing increase of 4,375%). A 2025 YouGov survey found that 49% of adults celebrated Halloween in some way, even though 48% regarded it as “not a GB tradition”. 

It’s caught on in Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand too, and has even reached Japan, where Halloween decorations can now be seen in the streets and shop windows.

The problem with Halloween

It’s a massive waste of water

Based on the global average water footprint of pumpkins (estimated at about 336 litres per kilogram), a typical 3 kg pumpkin represents a water footprint of just over 1,000 litres (2,100 US liquid pints) for an item that is used only for decoration. 

It’s an obscene waste of food

A 3 kg pumpkin can provide numerous portions of soup, roasted vegetables, or other meals, but millions of pumpkins grown for Halloween are used only for decoration and then discarded.

It causes massive environmental pollution

According to a 2019 report by the World Economic Forum, 10 million pumpkins were grown in the UK each year, 95% of which were used at Halloween and then thrown away, creating an estimated 18,000 tonnes of food waste.

The same 2019 report stated that the problem was much bigger in the US, where about 900,000 tonnes of pumpkins were produced annually and most were discarded instead of being eaten or composted. Rotting pumpkins generate methane gas, a powerful greenhouse gas, which a statement in 2013 by the US Department of Energy said has ‘more than 20 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide’.

It can disrupt wildlife

Rotting pumpkins left in the open tend to attract rats and can adversely affect woodland soils, plants, and fungi.

It plugs people into lower levels of consciousness

Halloween-themed movies and depictions of ghosts, phantoms, zombies, monsters, fake blood, severed parts, tombstones, coffins, witches, skeletons, skulls, rats, and other horror-related items don’t uplift or inspire us. They are all designed to induce fear and drag us down into lower levels of consciousness (Level 7, for anyone reading this who has taken my Seven Levels of Consciousness online course). 

It creates mountains of clutter

Many people with clutter issues are very attached to their Christmas decorations. Some have Easter, Valentine’s, and St Patrick’s decorations too, and in the US, Thanksgiving and Independence Day decorations are common.

In some homes, these seasonal decorations take up so much space that an entire room or attic may be allocated for their storage. Halloween items can be particularly large and bulky. A woman in one of my online clutter clearing courses had three life-size skeletons, for example. The costumes take up yet more space.

Most people don’t think of these types of things as clutter because they get used for a week or so each year. The problem is the space they take up for the other 51 weeks and how they tend to be added to each year, as new and more enticing decorations are marketed.

It’s a pointless waste of time, money, and resources

Halloween doesn’t serve any spiritual, religious, or practical purpose. Huge numbers of people have been lured into it by clever marketing ploys, and for what?

Richard and I never participate in Halloween. If you do, please at least consider that it doesn’t have to involve buying plastic decorations, storing boxes of seasonal clutter, wasting edible pumpkins, spending money on horror-themed costumes, or giving children sugary treats.

Here are a few suggestions:

• Get creative and use things you already own
• If you use decorative pumpkins and don’t eat them afterwards, chop them up and bury the pieces in your garden to compost naturally or find a local composting facility that accepts them
• If children arrive at your home trick-or-treating, give them something healthier than the usual sugar-laden treats

Better still, reflect on how pointless, wasteful, polluting, and spiritually disconnecting Halloween is. Does participating in it have any place in a conscious way of life?

Copyright © Clear Space Living Ltd 2026

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