Authored by Jeremy Lott via The Epoch Times,
Halloween numbers show that “Boo!” is big business in America.
Consumer spending on the holiday is expected to reach about $13.5 billion in 2026, according to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation.
Candy is the most popular purchase to give to costumed trick-or-treaters who roam the neighborhoods. Most consumers surveyed said they collectively plan to buy $4.1 billion worth of sweets.
Decorations are expected to cost people about $4.3 billion on top of that. Pumpkin sales alone are expected to top $700 million.
Fewer folks said they will buy costumes than candy or decorations, but they also expect to spend more on costumes, about $4.4 billion total.
Greeting cards were also expected to see a bump in the night in sales, with about $800 million in expected purchases.
Many businesses stand to benefit, including grocers, drug stores and other retailers.
Spirit Halloween is a seasonal pop-up chain that opens every year to meet people’s costume needs. It opened more than 1,500 temporary storefronts throughout the United States and Canada this year and employed more than 50,000 seasonal workers.
All of these businesses are benefiting from a spooky trend. Halloween gained more popularity during the COVID-19 lockdowns by offering Americans a community activity to do safely outdoors. For one night, masks were seen as fun decorations, not medical necessities.
Halloween’s popularity has endured past the lockdowns, with 74 percent of American consumers saying they plan to celebrate this year.
“I love Halloween. I’m a huge fan of it. You get to dress up and eat candy. What is better than that?” Los Angeles-based sustainable fashion activist Lexy Silverstein told The Epoch Times.
Tricks to Save Money (and the Planet)
People’s plans around Halloween also reflect current economic anxieties. Prices are up, which can be tricky for budgets. The cost of candy, for one, has outpaced inflation.
The retail prices for candy and related chewing gum have risen 7.7 percent in the past year, and 49 percent since August 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Costumes have also grown more expensive, due to a number of factors.
Many costumes are manufactured in foreign countries, including China, and face a variety of tariffs leveled by the Trump administration.
A popular strategy to make Halloween more affordable is to stretch out payments.
The National Retail Federation found that 49 percent of Americans planned to start their Halloween shopping before October. That’s up from 34 percent a decade ago.
People are using a number of approaches to keep the price of costumes down, including shopping second-hand stores and other discount sellers. The Dollar Store offers new children’s costumes for as little as $5.
The huge number of single-use costumes annoyed fashion activist Silverstein for reasons of frugality and sustainability.
She noted that Halloween costume prices have been rising. Many cost more than $100 today.
“That’s really a lot of money and real money, at a time that everything is so expensive, from our groceries to our gas to our rent,” Silverstein said.
She also worries about what happens to the environment, post-Halloween.
“About 80 percent of our costumes are made out of plastic,” and much of that finds its way into landfills, she said.
Cloth costumes can break down over time in landfills, but plastic substances are different.
She said they are not recycled by nature but are broken down into smaller pieces and contribute to the growing incidence of microplastic pollution.
This problem gnawed at her and prompted her to act in a way that could be good for the environment and people’s pocketbooks.
In both Los Angeles and Baltimore, Silverstein has placed collection bins for old costumes and is trying to get the word out for people to put their costumes there rather than throwing them out.
These bins function a little bit like Little Free Libraries. People can leave a costume, take a costume, or swap costume-for-costume.
More people donate than take costumes, and Silverstein goes through all the donations in California.
“My apartment becomes a mess at the end of this, because I have boxes and boxes and boxes of Halloween costumes that I sort through,” she said.
For the costumes that are reusable, she finds a way to donate those to places and organizations that can use them.
For those that are not reusable, she finds a way to recycle them in a way that is sustainable; for instance, some processes can turn costumes into “stuffing for your couch,” she said.
Silverstein is trying to get more volunteers to help her sort and more businesses and colleges to host bins.
Another way folks are saving money this Halloween involves using artificial intelligence to hunt for deals, though that’s not the only way people are using chatbots.
About 47 percent of consumers will use AI this year to support Halloween shopping, including for brainstorming and research, the National Retail Federation found.
Different Ways to Celebrate
Americans tend to celebrate Halloween in one of two ways, though there is some overlap. They dress up and go to parties, or they work to support kids in trick-or-treating and its close cousins.
Those who follow the costume-parties track often celebrate Halloween more as a season, and as a lifestyle than as a distinct one-and-done day, the Halloween & Costume Association has found.
The trade association announced new results from survey data this year that showed roughly one-third of adults who wear Halloween costumes participate in Summer Halloween-related festivities as well.
This occurs with enough frequency that it has even been labeled Summerween.
“Costume wearers are some of Halloween’s most enthusiastic consumers. They put thought into what they will wear, where they will shop and how they will celebrate,” said Michele Boylstein, the association’s executive director.
The trick-or-treating track has developed as well. It used to mean buying costumes and loot bags for kids and sending or taking them around to residences that evening, and preparing one’s own residence to receive trick-or-treaters with candy and sometimes decorations and costumes.
Trick-or-treating still occurs in most American neighborhoods. It has been supplemented by business districts giving out candy, usually earlier in the day, and also by the growth of “trunk-or-treating” in church and school parking lots.
Trunk-or-treating events usually take place during the day and can be scheduled either before or after Halloween. For trunk-or-treat events, in place of residences, people dispense candy and other goodies from their parked vehicles.
One enthusiastic trunk-or-treater is Andrea Stone, the founder and CEO of Ascenta HR. She lives in Provo, Utah, with her husband Frank, whom she credits for making Halloween a big deal in their family of six children – and now grandchildren as well.
“He has always loved Halloween, and every year he chooses a theme and puts real care into decorating our trunk,” she told The Epoch Times.
“About five years ago, he took things to a new level by adding a projector to our Jeep. It casts a mix of jokes and animations onto three pumpkins, and both the children and the adults who stop by are completely mesmerized.”
Her family has been taking part in trunk-or-treat events for decades, and she sees it as a boon to the larger community.
“Each fall, our congregation turns the church parking lot into a gathering place where neighbors, friends, and families come together for chili, costumes, treats, and an evening of decorated trunks,” Stone said.
“It is a safe, welcoming way for children to celebrate Halloween, and it gives adults a chance to slow down and connect with one another.”
Where Halloween Came From
Halloween is a short version of All Hallows’ Eve, which takes place on Oct. 31. It forms part of a three-day celebration, with All Saints Day and All Souls Day on Nov. 1 and 2.
These holidays were created over time by the Catholic Church. Pope Boniface IV declared All Saints Day a holy day in the seventh century AD. Pope Gregory III fixed the date at Nov. 1.
Halloween was also influenced by the ancient Celtic holiday of Samhain, which bears some resemblance to modern folklore surrounding Mexico’s Day of the Dead.
At this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, as the days begin to wane and the darkness waxes, the distance between the living and the dead had been thought by our forebears to be especially thin.
Trick-or-treating has been with us for a long time, in some form, as well.
Celts in Ireland, the UK and the north of France dressed up for Samhain. Many Christians, Celtic and otherwise, have been dressing up at least since the Middle Ages for All Hallows’ Eve.
Much like Christmas carolers with their demands of “figgy pudding,” these ancestral trick-or-treaters would dress up and perform for treats, and often deliver a trick or two if they didn’t get what they wanted.
