Day 148--Is Halloween the New Christmas?

I read an interesting article today about Halloween being the new Christmas.  According to ABC News:

-- The average American will spend $72.31 on Halloween this year (costume, decorations, candy, ect)

-- 69% of Americans intend to celebrate Halloween

--1/2 of all those celebrating will be decorating their homes.

 --The $72.31 figure is second only to the amount spent on Christmas.

When I was a kid, Halloween was a costume, a pumpkin, and some glass stickers.  In high school, Halloween was dressing up at school and watching a Halloween movie while working on midterm papers.  In college, however, Halloween BLEW UP.

In college you need at least two costumes, decorations for the house, money for booze for the party you're going to, cover for the club you're going to, a pumpkin, and some special Halloween food like pumpkin muffins to go with your pumpkin beer and other odds and ends.  It's looking like post-college has the same agenda and I love it.

Halloween and St. Patrick's Day are my favorite holidays for two really simple reasons: (1) they're extremely easy to participate in (and most people do), and (2) it's spent with friends. I mean, you can buy a 50¢ mask and join in the celebration of Halloween and just wear something green for St. Pat's Day.  There is no pressure of family and their expectations of you and the strain and hurt feelings of presents like with Christmas, or the awkwardness that arises over who's cooking the food as you get with Thanksgiving and Easter, nor is there backlash like you can get with people who hate Valentine's Day or get overly political about The Fourth of July.  

 

St. Pat's Day is great for being drunk and loud and merry.  But Halloween still trumps it with its innate requirement to indulge in your fantasies--and while naughty fantasies are more fun, it doesn't have to be sexual.  You can be whoever you want to be on Halloween that you can't be in real life, like a hippy, or a doctor, or a goth girl, or a cheerleader, or movie star, or bum, or you can dress up as your friend and be them for a night.  

Halloween is all about possibilities and fun and food and celebration for no damn reason.  We ain't trying to shoo away the spirits these days.

So carve a pumpkin, pour some ale, and be someone new for a night!

[Here's the original article]

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/halloween-christmas-153059277.html