The Biggest Horror of Halloween? Consumerism.
Halloween is a holiday celebrated by over 94% of all Americans. In modern times, the holiday is enjoyed by kids who trick or treat for hours just to fill up their bags with sugary, chemical-filled candy. It has become a consumer-driven tradition centered around buying and eating enough candy to last a lifetime.
Millions of kids line up in front of houses every year for one night, filling up giant bags of candy in the name of halloween. Little do they know, the childhood joy that they experience from the event is one small pro in a lake of cons. Each year, Americans spend billions of dollars on Halloween, whether it’s on costumes, decorations, or just candy. Its economic impact is massive. In 2023 alone, 12.2 billion dollars were spent, and in 2024, it was expected to reach 11.6 billion dollars. Even though spending in 2024 dropped from the year prior, the money spent on these companies is enormous and has no true connection to the holiday.
Origin of Halloween
Halloween’s origin is vastly different to how Halloween is celebrated today. Halloween came from the ancient Celtic festival called Samhain, which was celebrated at the end of a successful harvest in the summer. People partook in the festival by dancing around bonfires to ward off evil spirits. Later came a holiday very similar to the celebration of Samhain, called All Saints Day. This holiday was celebrated by Catholics as a way of recognizing different saints and praying to them. The night before this holiday,October 31rst, is when people who passed away are recognized and given time to be honored. This night was called All Hallows’ Eve, also known as Halloween.
The Consumeristic Aspect
Over time, Halloween drifted away from its original meaning and became an annual tradition of buying a ton of candy to give to children. They also buy costumes and decorations, fueling various companies and bringing so much profit to them. And every single year the same thing happens again, people buy new costumes, new decorations and surplus amounts of candy to give out, and their own children end up bringing back buckets full of it.
These traditions have become so rooted within the holiday that people feel Halloween doesn’t exist without them. The amount of money spent sounds crazy to many people, and honestly, really scary. 12.2 billion dollars on one night is so extreme when it comes to finances but people don’t think about that part of the holiday. For them, it’s a childhood joy they once experienced that they want to pass down to their children.
Harsh truth
Unfortunately, it has gotten to the point where even people who aren’t doing financially well can’t hold back from spending money on this event, and are unable to break apart from the cycle. The money spent on Halloween could be used for so many more important things in the world that actually need financial support. For example, the amount spent on Halloween is half of the entire year’s worth of dental care for children. Another example on how to better spend money is buying healthy food for people in need. Families spend so much on unhealthy, chemically altered candy that only damages children’s health when they could put that money towards the health of others. The concept of buying candy to make children happy is a false pretense that companies have convinced people in order to sell to them and generate revenue.
Halloween is a holiday that could mean horror for many households unless action is taken to cut down on these costs and make a better, sweeter future for the coming generations.
References
Team, Drive Research. “15+ Fun-Sized Halloween Statistics [2024].” Drive Research, 26 Nov. 2024, www.driveresearch.com/market-research-company-blog/2022-fun-sized-halloween-statistics/.
Thomas, H. (2021, October 26). The origins of Halloween traditions: Headlines & heroes. The Library of Congress. https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2021/10/the-origins-of-halloween-traditions/
Zagorsky Associate Professor of Markets, Jay. “Why Is Halloween Spending Growing When Americans Are Supposedly Cutting Back?” The Conversation, 29 July 2025, theconversation.com/why-is-halloween-spending-growing-when-americans-are-supposedly-cutting-back-242101.