As Halloween marks the impending slide into the holidays, many go out of their way to dress up their homes with cobwebs, pumpkins and the occasional animatronic. In recent years, however, it seems the ante has been upped excessively when it comes to decorations.
With social media, it is far more common to see houses submerged in inflatables, strobe lights and fog, as is it easier to get videos detailing the “Top Ten Things You Need For Halloween.” Statistically, spending for Halloween has also been on the rise.
It is easy to guess why Halloween is growing. People get excited to see the neighborhood transform, the decorations being a creeping reminder of the changing seasons. With the average person spending up to $80 on decorations every year, however, the struggle between consumerism and sustainability is re-examined every fall.
It does not help that most decorations cannot be produced sustainably, either. Halloween is a very plasticky holiday. The skeleton hanging from the neighbor’s tree? Plastic. The candy? Swaddled in plastic before it gets jettisoned off into someone’s gut. Kids and adults alike tote around plastic buckets and wear plastic masks, hats and tiaras whose destiny, more often than not, lay in the attic, tossed and forgotten.
There is nothing wrong with participating in a holiday, but Halloween’s growing popularity means that, should spending continue, more sustainable methods should be used. Making costumes as opposed to buying, for example, not only emulates the craftiness of setting up decorations and carving pumpkins but also outright eliminates unnecessary spending. Reusing decorations saves both time and money, and smaller decorations can be just as meaningful as large displays.
Being more conscious about spending during the holidays is crucial moving forward. With rising prices, perhaps the scariest thing of this season is money wasted.
