Here at Costume Craze, costumes are flying off our shelves like bats from a belfry.

Maybe that’s because, according to surveys conducted by the National Retail Federation and Visa Inc., Americans plan to spend more on Halloween this year than last.

In fact, 64.5% of adults eighteen and older plan to participate in Halloween activities. About 35% of adults plan to dress in costume this year and at least 73.7% plan on handing out candy.

Here are some other interesting Halloween facts I scooped up on the internet:

• Snickers are the #1 candy of choice for Halloween.

• 86% of Americans decorate their homes for Halloween.

• Halloween is the 8th largest card sending holiday.

• Of the pumpkins marketed domestically, 99% of them are used as Jack-o-lanterns at Halloween.

• Halloween is the third biggest party day of the year behind New Year’s Day and Super Bowl Sunday!

It’s clear that Halloween is more than the customary night of trick-or-treating. It’s expanded into a holiday that includes activities for people of all ages, while remaining relatively stress-free and inexpensive. And this year, there’s the added bonus of October 31st falling on a Friday. Gee…a moderately priced, stress-free Friday? Sounds like a good excuse to have a frightfully fun Halloween!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Halloween, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.