Sep. 2—I was visiting a local big-box warehouse store last week to pick up some caulking, since you can never have enough caulking, only to fear that I had made a mistaken turn into a House of Horrors, otherwise known as the Halloween "décor" display.

A deranged giant clown, like a nightmare version of the Bozo the Clown of my black-and-white television youth, stared down at me with blank eyes. There were zombies, and mummies, and human skulls, lots of human skulls. There were plastic tombstones, fanged bats, skeletal fingers guarding candy bowls and all sorts of other frightening depravities.

And I thought, "Who buys this stuff?"

A lot of people, apparently.

Americans spent $10.6 billion on Halloween last year, second only to the marketing behemoth that is Christmas. Total nationwide retail spending for Halloween 2022 increased by an estimated $500 million, or 4.95%, over 2021. And Americans are expected to spend even more on Halloween this year. To put things in perspective, the 2022 Halloween spending was more than the total operating budgets of a dozen states. You can run Montana and South Dakota for what Americans spend on Halloween.

The spending rundown can be found on capitaloneshopping.com.

Halloween expenditures are divided about equally between candy, costumes, and décor, which includes everything from plastic pumpkins to those towering zombies.

What must Chinese workers be thinking on the assembly line as they pump out one skull-headed plastic corpse after another? "These Americans sure have some weird tastes. And I thought my sister over at the Christmas sweater factory had strange stories to tell."

The average American had a $100 budget for Halloween 2022 supplies, according to the website Statista. But, really, how many folks have a budget for Halloween? Plastic tombstones seem more of an impulse buy. "Mom, I love that one with the creepy spider on it and the boney hand reaching out of the ground! Please?"

Who could blame mom for putting it on the charge card and worrying about it later?

On the other hand, aren't people being hit hard by the high cost of things and struggling to make ends meet? So, one would expect Halloween sales to drop as folks divert spending to more vital needs.

Not necessarily.

Americans are willing to sacrifice for their Halloween. From 2018 to 2022, the average Halloween decoration budget increased 27.2%, while household budgets grew at about half that rate.

It is not just households with kids spending money on Halloween. It has become as much an adult celebration as one for kids. And outfitting pets for the spooky holiday is another growing revenue source for the industry. Consumers spent $700 million on pet costumes for Halloween 2022, nearly 20% of total costume expenditures.

"This inflation is killing me. I can't afford to put food on the table. I don't know how long this old car will hang in there. But, hey, doesn't Fido look cute in that Spiderdog outfit?"

Halloween was not like this when I was a kid. (OK, I know what you're thinking, "Here we go, the old man launching his when-I-was-a-kid routine." Sorry.) Yes, the parents had to purchase plenty of candy to fill the bags of all those baby-boomer kids, but many of the costumes were homemade and no one was spending a few days of their pay on horror decorations. Granted, some parents were also handing out popcorn balls, candied apples and other homemade "goodies" of uncertain sanitary integrity. Not all post-Halloween stomach aches were due to too much candy.

But, hey, who am I to question how people spend their money or fill their charge cards? All hail the free market. If I don't like the Halloween display, I can always move on to the Christmas one. Those are starting to appear already, too.

Paul Choiniere is the former editorial page editor of The Day, now retired. He can be reached at p.choiniere@yahoo.com.