For Halloween, Kerry Grant of Hazel Park, Mich., is turning his front yard into a glitzy theme park of monsters, magic and mayhem.
“I want kids to be able to experience and have the memories I had as a child,” says Grant, 41. “And I’m selfish. I enjoy it myself.”
Decorating for Halloween has never been more popular, fueled in part by Baby Boomers who grew up loving the holiday and now have the disposable income to indulge their fantasies of Halloween as they remember it–or wish it had been.
Traditional pumpkins, corn husks and homemade scarecrows are still part of Halloween decorating, but so are 3-foot-tall plastic pumpkins and bat-shaped light frames that flicker in the night to amplified Halloween CDs with songs like “Monster Mash” and “Staying Alive.”
“You sound almost sacrilegious when you say it, but Halloween has probably always been my favorite holiday. You had the opportunity to be anyone for a day,” Grant says.
Halloween has come a long way. Formerly a single night for children to threaten tricks or receive treats, harvest/fall/Halloween is now a distinct decorating season that approaches Christmas in intensity.
The National Retail Federation says merchants rang up $2.5 billion in Halloween retail sales last year and sales figures so far in 1997 are strong.
People decorate their homes and yards for Halloween to make a personal, often homemade, sometimes scary and bizarre statement. And at Halloween, the taste police can’t stop them.
Even home owners who normally keep conservatively groomed lawns and flower beds have tacit permission to get wild and crazy at Halloween, with its images of harvest, goblins and death.
“It’s the one time of year we recognize the forces that are beyond our control,” says Jack Santino, professor of popular culture at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University. “If people were to put out those decorations any other time of year, the neighbors would call the cops.”
The popularity of Halloween’s trappings indicate that many people now want their homes decorated in some special way at all times of the year, according to Brenda Vaughn, advertising director for Bordine Nursery in Rochester Hills, Mich.
“People are focusing more on their homes. They’re spending more time and money on their homes,” she says.
Also, there is a competitive side to decorating. A highly decorated house will often spur–or shame–neighbors into sprucing up their own yards for Halloween.
Coming at the end of the traditional outdoor gardening season, harvest and Halloween decorations also become a reason to stay outside longer in the fall.
“We see a lot more every year–lights, tombstones, ghosts, all kinds of outdoor decorations. It’s really not limited to pumpkins and corn stalks anymore,” says Joe DiRado, owner of Brickscape Gardens in Northville, Mich.
DiRado speculates that those most enthusiastic about Halloween decorations are middle-aged homeowners with children, people who are “just having fun outside again.”
But what possesses them to spend many hours and dollars decorating their yards and houses?
The free, creative spirit associated with Halloween is part of the appeal, says Gary Hoppenstand, associate chairperson of the Department of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University.
Halloween is a holiday without emotional baggage, family traditions or gift-giving responsibilities, he explains.
“It’s a cathartic experience for some people. You’re allowed to do weird and crazy things and get away with it,” Hoppenstand says.
The outdoor harvest/fall/Halloween decorating cycle starts in late summer with chrysanthemums, the floral poster children of autumn; door wreaths sporting friendly ghosts and gourds; and autumn-advertising house flags, which flap merrily over many doors.
The real seasonal stars are pumpkins, available in many formats, including the real thing in traditional jack-o’-lantern sizes (generally $1 to $10), giant pumpkins (up to $50) or 3-foot-tall plastic lighted pumpkin displays ($32.99).
Whether theirs are modest or elaborate displays, families are turning Halloween into an event that stretches over days or even weeks.
“Just like we have the Christmas season, Halloween is at least a month-long holiday,” says Heather Lorincz, general manger of the English Gardens store in Eastpointe, Mich. “People are gearing up for it and getting in the mood for it. Stores have the things a lot earlier.”
Her store has three times as many kinds of Halloween light sets as it did last year, when it had more than the previous year. Most light sets cost less than $10, she says.
The growth of Halloween decorations reflects a booming economy.
“Spending money and celebrating is what it is all about,” says Victor Bloom, a psychiatrist who teaches at Wayne State University.
“Halloween used to be a way to deal with death. Now, to keep the evil spirits away, we show how happy and rich we are. The spirits wouldn’t want to bother us while we’re having such a good time.”
“I just want to bring a little enjoyment back to kids and the community,” says Grant, a retail sales manager who starts planning his annual Halloween display each May and building it in July.
“I’ll never find a cure for cancer and there are lots of other things I can’t do, but this is something I can do.”
