Sunday, September 23, 2007
By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER
Scott Young of Hackensack is behind on his Halloween preparations. He's already cut some characters out of plywood, but he still needs to paint them, bolt them into the ground with angle irons and set up his timing-based lighting system. He also needs to rent a costume that fits in with the theme and buy candy to fill his 18-gallon Rubbermaid tubs -- all by late next week.Why, oh why, did he not start in August?
[Above: Clinton Place display on Halloween night, 2006. Photographer: Evelyn Shih]
Granted, Young lives on the legendary Clinton Place, where hordes of locals and visitors gather every year to see over-the-top Halloween decorations. (A few years ago, he spent three months creating his "Finding Nemo" display from scratch.) But Young isn't alone in preparing early for the spookiest day of the year. Orange and black can be seen dotting North Jersey retailers sometimes before Labor Day, a testament that Halloween, once thought an October holiday, really begins in August.
Growing euphoria
Nobody would be surprised to hear that Christmas gets earlier every year -- what with being the biggest holiday for retailers and home decorators alike. But other holidays, like Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, the Fourth of July and even Mardi Gras, are slowly spinning their webs of influence to cover any untouched day of the calendar.
According to shop owners, it's a happy (and profitable) cycle of growing holiday euphoria. The more consumer interest there is in a holiday, the more merchandise is ordered to fill that need. "Carrying seasonal merchandise increases shopper frequency," explained JC Penney's Rick Jones, director of merchandise implementation.
But the more merchandise you get from manufacturers, the more time you need to get those fog machines and light-up eyeballs into stores. Pretty soon, you're receiving Halloween items by the Fourth of July, said Bergen County Party City franchise owner Ellen Sarma.
"Over the past 10 years, we've been expanding our categories, and we need to start putting items out earlier to get all the assortments out in time," she said.
Not just for kids
It helps that Halloween as a holiday has grown up. Not only do kids get revved up for the Big Night O' Fun, but adults also dress up for work, hold parties and decorate their homes and lawns. According to the National Retail Federation, 85.3 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds celebrated the holiday in 2006 (up from 66.8 percent in 2005). They edged out the 76.5 percent of those ages 25 to 34 and the 71.3 percent between 35 and 44 who also partied it up.
All this added up to national spending on the holiday amounting to nearly $5 billion last year, with $1.31 billion spent on decorations alone.
"Can it be a pain in the butt? Sure, it can be," said Francisco Rodriguez, a 37-year-old neighbor of the Youngs on Clinton Place. "Wind can blow over your display. There might be rain; fog machines die. ... But it's totally as much fun for the adults as it is for the kids."
To help adults like Rodriguez and Young with their preparations, Better Homes & Gardens Special Interest Publications puts out holiday editions. This year, Halloween Tricks & Treats hit the shelves Aug. 28 and was expected to sell 425,000 copies. It was joined by a new Halloween booklet, "Bright Ideas: Halloween Parties & Treats," published Sept. 4.
The new publication "used to be just a few pages," said Emily Bethel from the publications' advertising and sales department. "But it expanded to its own publication."
And lest you think that this is too much lead time, consider this: The Christmas cookies edition hits newsstands Tuesday.
A green month
While Halloween is the current example of holiday creep, it isn't alone. Annual celebrations such as St. Patrick's Day and the Fourth of July are also undergoing a type of expansion.
St. Patrick's Day, for example, has risen from its humble beginnings as a fete on the saint's day of death to an entire month of green-themed festivities. The Bergen County parade in Bergenfield will be March 9, and the well-attended Hoboken parade will be even earlier on March 1. The Highlands parade will resurrect the spirit of Ireland for a parade March 24, one week after the actual date of the holiday.
The reason? Few towns want to risk losing people (and much-needed revenue) to the gargantuan New York City parade on March 17. Parades often share the same group of performers -- bagpipe bands are constantly in demand during March -- and, in many cases, the same group of celebrants. They also want to avoid overlapping with other holidays showing signs of creep, such as early Easter celebrations, said Dick Moloney, a past chairman of the Bergen parade committee.
The earlier the better
After setting the date of the parade, community groups also need to start fund-raising, booking bands and inviting groups to create floats. The same is true of Fourth of July celebrations, said Margie Downs, one of the leaders of Ridgewood's Fourth of July committee.
"We met on July 9 to discuss how things went this year and to start thinking of themes for the next year," she said. And it's never too early to start planning for the Ridgewood parade's centennial coming up in 2010, she said.
With the world perpetually stuck in pre-planning mode, Ho-Ho-Kus storeowner Kathleen Vard is one of the few believers in the present.
"I like to stay in the moment," said Vard, who puts up a different window display for her lifestyle store Comme Si Comme Ca every month. "I know I defy the general trend."
But even Vard will admit that the folk artists she works with are already planning for Halloween 2008. And sometimes, seasons sneak upon us earlier than we expect. "Right now I've got a real itch to put some pumpkins in the window," she said. "I don't really like to, but I was up in the Catskills, and there were pumpkins everywhere."
E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
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