Halloween Falls on a Saturday This Year, and It Comes With a Bonus Hour

Halloween is the one night each year when everyone can be someone else. This year, Good Housekeeping says, the night is better than usual for two reasons.

First, Halloween falls on a Saturday. That means there are no school nights, no early alarms and no need to cut the fun short.

Second, there is a bonus hour. Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, when the clocks go back one hour. That gives everyone an extra hour of night.

The extra hour can be used in several ways. It gives people more time to decide whether to go to a party. They can pull together a costume and arrive late, or stay home without feeling guilty. For families trick-or-treating, it gives time for one more house, one more photo or one more guess at who is dressed as what. And on Sunday morning, anyone who stayed up late with a candy-fueled kid wakes up with an extra hour of sleep.

How rare is this? A Halloween on a Saturday is uncommon, happening only about twice in a decade, and in those years it coincides with the end of daylight saving time. The last such years were 2009, 2015 and 2020, and this year joins the list. After this year, the next time is 2037, an 11-year wait.

So the advice is to make the most of it. You can be a kid, a DJ or a mysterious stranger, and this year you have an extra hour to enjoy it.