If Halloween in America was a country, it would have a higher GDP than 33 other countries in the world. Yes friends, the National Retail Federation says our wacky country, where 57% of the population couldn’t cover a $1,000 emergency, throws away $12,200,000,000 on stuff
like this:
and this: 
and this: 
Which is obscene. And it also begs the question, ‘Where does all this crap live the rest of the year?’ Well, probably most of it ends up in storage units that Americans pay over $29,200,000,000 a year for. That’s higher than the GDP of Iceland. If American spending on storage units and Halloween combined were a country, it would be in the top 100 GDP countries in the world. And that’s just one marketed-for-suckers holiday.
Halloween doesn’t have to cost much for a good time:
How about this… instead of some corporate crumb thousands of miles away deciding what you and your kids will wear for costumes, why not ask your kids what they want to be and make the costume yourselves? You and the kids. It’s a blast! Here are two hero shots from back in the day. I suppose it was easier for our family than many others because our family didn’t have television so the kids weren’t bombarded with Halloween costume commercials made by corporate crumbs thousands of miles away. Our kids would decide what they wanted to be: a bug, a tiger, cowboy, mummy… and we’d make the costume with what we had at the house, or maybe we’d make a run to the thrift store for parts.
That would happen on years the kids would change their minds about what they wanted to be at the last minute. Personally, I was okay with that because they had total confidence their Dad would figure it out. One year our youngest decided late in the game he wanted to be a teddy bear. We went to the Salvation Army store and lo’, there was a great big teddy bear just his size. We paid $3 took it home, pulled out the stuffing, cut the face off, the kid climbed in, we painted a bear’s nose on him and he thought it was great.
Pumpkins: If you’re carving pumpkins, why not get small, organic pie pumpkins, wait until Halloween to carve them. Next morning you can cook them, mash them, and make them into muffins or pies or freeze the puree to eat like squash. If you’re going to a potluck, your can make tapioca pumpkin, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, pumpkin roll, pumpkin sheet cake, pumpkin ice cream pie…
Candy: Commercial Halloween candy is a scam. Unless you live in a neighborhood where you know lots of kids, one bag will be plenty. Some people buy a couple of those huge candy bags at the big box store, high grade-them eating all the good stuff themselves-then when not many kids come for Trick or Treat, the adults eat a couple thousand extra calories in the first week of November with no time to work it off before Thanksgiving.
Movies: Not keen on slasher movies? Me neither. Here are some that are fun, not really for little kids.
Beetlejuice: (1988) comedy: My all-time favorite. This fim won Michael Keaton The National Society of Film Critic’s Best Actor Award in 1988. I always watch at least part of it on the night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLw3SVzu4rk
Dracula, Dead and Loving it: (1995) comedy: one of Mel Brooks’ best. A parody of all the other vampire movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fFnJNC0K0w
The Vampire Lovers: (1970) Is Ingrid Pitt the sexiest vampire ever? You be the judge. Here’s the lesbian scene everyone watches this movie for (oh, you want to, just go ahead and click the link) . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PMV_5DzJ1s Peter Cushing is also in it.
The Fearless Vampire Killers: (1967) comedy darker than the two above: Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate. This is the movie that kicked off the whole genre of sexy vampires. Gay overtones like ‘The Vampire Lovers’, Mel Brooks totally ripped off the dance scene in ‘Dead and Loving It’ from ‘The Fearless Vampire Killers’. For whatever reason, MGM did a hatchet job on the original film making it disjointed, you can find both films on the net. The orignial is better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvEt55TluSA
Music:
Bloodletting: Concrete Blonde: featuring the incomparable Johnette Napalitano, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQYTNNHc1cQ&t=26s
My Father’s Ghost: Ron Hynes: From the coast of Newfoundland, the great Ron Hynes with the scariest last two lines of any song I know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k15xwu44N-I
King Henry: Children’s ballad: Various Versions, various lyrics. I first heard this at the Alaska Folkfestival about 25 years ago. Sung by two men who were excellent guitarists. Knocked me out. https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/kinghenry.html
Werewolves of London: Warren Zevon: required listening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qae25976UgA&t=72s
https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/
