Halloween spending set to hit a record $13.5 billion in 2026

Christmas has its Scrooge. I think I might be Halloween's.

I've never been the biggest Halloween person. Trick-or-treating was fun as a kid, and I loved taking my own kids out for it. But I have never once understood the appeal of "spooky season."

I like summer. Halloween is the opposite of summer. It's dark. It's cold. And, in my front yard's case every October, it's a mess.

Labor Day already ruined it for me

Labor Day is bad enough on its own — the so-called unofficial end of summer. By the time it rolls around, the Halloween candy and decorations have already been on store shelves for weeks, arriving somewhere around the same time as the back-to-school ads, which is to say, practically on the Fourth of July.

You can have your Labor Day. You can have your fall. You can have your Halloween.

And you can definitely have your pumpkin spice latte, because I still don't know what that actually tastes like. What even is that? Is it the stuff they scoop out of a pumpkin to make a jack-o'-lantern, poured into coffee? Genuinely no idea.

Then there's what Halloween does to front yards. Giant creepy skeletons. That stringy fake web material draped over every shrub on the block. Light displays elaborate enough to rival Christmas, a full two months early.

I don't get it. I never have.

SEE ALSO: Why I'm Not Looking Forward To Fall In New Jersey

So I should not have been shocked by a new report on Halloween spending. But I was.

Americans are expected to spend a record $13.5 billion on Halloween this year, according to a new forecast from the National Retail Federation. Of that, $4.3 billion is going toward decorations alone — which, based on my street, checks out.

Almost half of shoppers, 49%, say they're starting their Halloween shopping in September or earlier. I thought I was joking about the candy showing up next to the school supplies. Turns out I was underselling it.

Separate research from the company Resparked found searches for "Halloween crafts" jumped 131% in a single month, as people look to make their own decorations instead of just buying them off a shelf. Resparked's founder, Santiago Roa, calls these kinds of projects "Snack-Hobbies" — small, low-commitment creative activities people can knock out in an hour without turning their whole house into a workshop.

I understand the appeal of that part, at least. There is something to be said for making a thing with your hands instead of staring at a screen. I just don't need my hands making a skeleton for the front lawn.

Fine. I'll allow the candy.

Look, I'll always take my kids trick-or-treating again in a heartbeat if I could go back. That part of Halloween, I'll defend all day.

The other $13.5 billion worth of it? You all go ahead. I'll be the one down the block with a normal-looking lawn, waiting for summer to come back around.