Is Halloween fading away in the USA?

[p6x]

Last night I went to the tens of million dollars homes district in Houston: River Oaks!

I usually go there twice every year; once for Halloween, the second time for Christmas.

Almost every house in that district have decorations that defie imagination and are a few Moto Guzzi worth...

I went last night, and only a very few of the houses there were decorated. When I say a few, I think I counted probably 10, out of more than hundreds. My neighborhood has also become low key. Where people competed to have better looking house, you only see a few uncarved pumpkins laying here and there. Not even carved!

Halloween never took up in France, deemed an openly marketing event, not a genuine celebration.

How's the Halloween mood in your parts?

 

[Scud]

I'm seeing fewer homes decorated for Halloween, but among those fewer, they seem to be more extravagant. I'd say good riddance to Halloween if it does fade away. The big stores are full of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas decorations, all at the same time. I wonder who has room to store all that crap. I don't. I have too many boxes of motorcycle parts. Halloween is a made-up marketing holiday. It has some fun parts, but it's a lot a sugar that the kids don't need along with a lot of plastic waste that the world doesn't need. But I am not above trick-or-teating to my neighbors' houses with an empty shot glass in hand. Maybe I'll try a wine glass this year.

As far as I'm concerned, we can get rid of the other two holidays too. While I like the idea of periodically stopping to be thankful, the whole Pilgrims and Indians things is just the start of one of the biggest genocides in human history (not worth celebrating). I also like the idea of getting the family together at year end and exchanging gifts. But I'm not buying the Christmas origin story or the Santa marketing campaign.

Let's go back to celebrating the solstices and equinoxes... objectively observable natural phenomena. We can have a major holiday once a quarter. That seems like a nice rhythm. But then, those holidays don't mean much to people near the equator... so to each their own.

[Scud]

Related article in today's New York Times. I subscribe, this is a shared link to the article, but I don't know if it will work from a forum like this:

 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/business/halloween-shopping-retail-costume-store-growth.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TU4.hdfJ.q9ucT19kJey5&smid=url-share

[activpop]

I tend to agree. It's all about marketing and money. My wife is Swedish and we have many Swedish cousins.  We have celebrated "Midsommar" over the years when the kids were younger. I did Christmas lights for a few years but stopped. Guess I'm a Scrooge.

We have often wondered the same thing @Scud, where do people store all that crap. In the developments down the hill from me most people cant use their garages for cars because it is full of stuff...and not motorcycle stuff! And I can't tell you how many storage places are nearby.

Another big marketing money grab you left out...Valentines Day. How could Hallmark survive without it?

 

 

 

 

 

[p6x]

49 minutes ago, activpop said:

How could Hallmark survive without it?

I think Hallmark is pretty dead too....

Having spent countless hours perfecting my handwriting at school, using nibs in holders, having ink included in desks, nobody uses pens any longer. The cards that I receive have printed words, and if I am lucky, there is a hand drawn signature on it.

Even documents are no longer requiring hand signature. You can sign electronically, and it is just as good.

I am fighting that lost battle anyway. I have gone back to paying by check as I can't stand having to enter codes to confirm its me before I can log in.

I have to pay an extra six dollars to receive my insurance card on paper since I refuse to download the insurance's application on my phone. I don't want to be bound by my phone for just everything, because I often go out without it.

My last flight to Phoenix Az to go to Sedona, I had to pay extra to print my boarding pass. I paid for the flight, but that does not include a boarding pass? next it will be the luggage tags that you will need to pay for?

What a formidable world we live in!!! thank god I can get out of all that on my Guzzi...

[footgoose]

this -

4 hours ago, p6x said:

I don't want to be bound by my phone for just everything

I started hopping the velvet ropes at the 'herding' lines in my early 20's

[docc]

I thought about this on my 90 mile circuit through the countryside this afternoon. There was a handful of Halloween decorations, but probably a couple dozen autumn/harvest displays like this sort:

There is still some "Trick-or-Treat" in some of the cities and towns, but not out here in the rural countryside. Instead, many of the churches host a "Trunk-or-Treat" in their parking lots where the kids can go from car to car in their costumes and the interactions are among people who know one another.

Here, in the deep U.S. southland, Christmas lights and wreaths or garland are still very much part of the landscape starting about Thanksgiving weekend.

[Guzzimax]

If it’s fading away in the USA, it’s booming here in the UK with more plastic Halloween junk than ever being sold each year. When I was a kid 50 years ago there was no such event as Halloween, I see it as another marketing stunt to sell more tat.
Sadly today I had my last motorcycle ride (on my MT01) for many weeks. Tomorrow I take a flight to DFW, I’m in Dallas for a week (I work for a large US owned engineering company), then fly back home for 6 days, & on 2 November fly back across the Atlantic with Mrs Guzzimax to Barbados to depart on a 14 day Caribbean cruise on the MV Britannia. Then on returning later in November, off to the Far East for 3 weeks business travel, finally returning home mid December. The compensation is lots of winter sunshine to look forward to 

[audiomick]

Halloween seems to be gaining popularity in Germany, although it has absolutely nothing to do with the culture here. As far as I can tell, it is probably a pagan Gaelic festival that was "christianised" by the early christian movement. Its modern day increasing popularity here can only be ascribed to commercialism.

Edited Sunday at 12:00 AM by audiomick

[guzzler]

Yeah, it's gaining popularity here too mate...

But then again anything American will eventually thrive here too!

You're right about it's pagan / Celtic origins. It seems to have originated from the Celtic tradition of Samhain.

Funny in that I have an Irish background and the concept was never even mentioned let alone celebrated and agree that it's another moneymaking endeavour....

Still if the neighbourhood kids enjoy it then no harm done.

Cheers