On the list of things that I am planning to do this week is get to a store to purchase Halloween candy. Trick or treat is a big deal in our neighborhood and I enjoy sitting on our front porch looking at all of the children in costume and handing out candy. I know some of our neighbors put out a bowl of candy with a sign that says, “Please take only one piece,” and pretty much ignore the rest of the holiday. I also know that the children take more than one piece and the bowl empties quicker than is the case in homes where a person helps to distribute the candy. I guess those folks don’t find the joy that I find in watching the children going around the neighborhood, visiting with those who come to our door, and hearing the cheerful “Happy Halloween!” and “Thank you!” from children.

I don’t know how much money I will spend. I don’t buy much candy and am not familiar with the price. I do know that I will go to a big box retailer and purchase bargain priced candy in a large bag. I also know that our grandchildren will come to our house for dinner and will go out afterwards to collect candy from our neighbors. Halloween is on a Tuesday this year, so it is a school night and the activities will have to be conducted in a timely manner to get children to bed in time to keep from disrupting the next day’s activities. I also know that the excitement over the holiday and the increased consumption of sugary treats by children who are not used to such extravagance will affect the children’s ability to go to sleep and to focus on their studies the next morning.

Still, I enjoy the mood of our neighborhood on Halloween and spending a bit on treats seems like a good use of our resources.

However, a quick walk around our neighborhood reveals that once again we don’t even come close to the big spenders of the area. There are houses on our street where there has already been some big spending on decorations. One house has giant webs of rope with huge artificial spiders crawling all over them. Another one has a fake cemetery complete with a lot of skeletons, including animal skeletons and fake headboards. They’ve even put up a crumbling fence around their yard that isn’t part of their usual landscaping. Popular among several houses are inflatable figures including monsters and ghosts. They look rather strange during the day, all deflated and lying on the grass, waiting for someone to turn on the fans and lights that complete the displays when evening comes. A day or so ago when we were walking around the neighborhood a neighbor came out onto their front porch and momentarily surprised us to see an actual live human being in the middle of the life sized skeletons displayed on the porch.

We’re not into that level of decoration. We’ll probably put out a few pumpkins and squash from the farm in a few days. It was raining too hard to pick them up yesterday. We may even have a few bundles of corn stalks and sunflowers if our grandchildren get into participating in the decorating.

When our children were young we’d make a few decorations out of construction paper and put them in the windows with tape. We’ve never gotten into going to the Halloween specialty stores or other places that sell all of the fancy decorations. And we’re not into costume parties and other adult events.

It appears that we are on the conservative side when it comes to Halloween spending. The economic impact in our country is staggering. The National Retail Foundation projects that 2023 Halloween spending will hit a record $12.2 billion, exceeding last year’s record of 10.6 billion. That is an average of $108 for each person. With our son’s family of six over to dinner plus the two of us, we’d have to spend $864 to be average. We live close to Canada and are perhaps influenced by our neighbors to the north where the median spending is about $50 Canadian ($37 US). My personal budget will probably be closer to that number for total household spending.

Homemade costumes are fine for our grandchildren. I still enjoy seeing children in homemade costumes. They tend to be more interesting than the commercially prepared ones. I even get a kick out of the classic one that is an old sheet with a couple of holes cut for eyes. I don’t believe in ghosts, so don’t have a reference for what one might look like, but I doubt that it would be much like someone who appears to have failed at folding a fitted sheet and given up and cut a couple of holes so they could see. Still improvised costumes bring a smile to my face. And they are no more of a trip hazard than the giant inflatable costumes worn by some of the children of big spenders. Carrying around a battery operated fan to keep the costume inflated seems like over kill for me.

We have no plans for special lighting at our house, either. The porch light seems to be about right for the children to see the step up to the porch and parents to see what is going on from the sidewalk in front of our house. I don’t have outdoor speakers to project spooky sounds and I don’t have any plans to download special music from the Internet to play for the holiday. I’m thinking more in terms of a crock pot of spiced hamburger for sloppy Joes, a bowl of apple and vegetable slices, and candy to hand out as I sit on the porch watching the coming and going of children. It will be a good evening of entertainment for me and we’ll probably have the grandchildren on their way home and the lights out by 9 pm. The next morning’s clean up might involve picking up a few discarded candy wrappers on the lawn, but nothing more.

I won’t have any cumbersome decorations to take down and store in big boxes. And I won’t have a big credit card bill coming from spending. Maybe I’m not doing my part to keep the economy booming, but it will be enough for our family to emerge happy and satisfied and ready to focus our attention on giving thanks in November.