For children, dressing up and trick-or-treating door-to-door is still the main event. Most households in the United States and Canada participate, and those who don’t run the risk of petty vandalism. Many adults dress up themselves, to go out with their children or to attend costume parties and contests.
Halloween continues to be extremely popular with kids of all ages; 85 to 90 percent of U.S. children go trick-or-treating or engage in other Halloween festivities every year, and many adults also join in on the fun. In a 2000 poll, the National Retail Federation found that 65 percent of U.S. adults between 18 and 34 attended Halloween costume parties or other celebrations.
Other Halloween activities fill the whole month of October. These traditions preserve Samhain’s spirit of revelry in the face of frightening thoughts of death and the supernatural. Americans have added scary movies, community haunted houses, ghost stories and Ouija boards to the celebration. Greeting cards and festive decorations are also a big part of Halloween. The holiday is second only to Christmas in total revenue dollars for retailers.
In the United States, Halloween lags just behind New Year’s Eve and the Super Bowl in total number of parties, and it’s second only to Christmas in total consumer dollars spent. According to the National Retail Federation, U.S. consumers spent an average of $44 per household in 2002 on Halloween candy, costumes and decorations. Families with young children spent an average of $62. The 2002 holiday brought in about $6.9 billion in sales in the United States