Whether you’re a zombie, vampire or goblin, you are bound to spend some cash on your costume and decorations. The National Retail Federation (NRF) calculated that Americans spend almost $90 individually during Halloween. The collectives costs come out to around $8.9 billion. Costumes come out on top and cost Americans $3.2 billion every year.  Decorations come in at $2.7 billion, and candy comes in third with $2.6 billion. And for an additional cost, Americans spend nearly $400 million on greeting cards. That brings the total amount to $8.9 billion; an absurd amount of money for fake blood, cheap candy and faux fur wolf masks.

Celtics (Western Europeans) were the first to celebrate Halloween in-between 500 BCE and 50 CE. Their name for the holiday is Samhain and its purpose was to ward off ghosts during the time of year where the line between the living and the dead is the thinnest. They wore masks, as well as ornate clothing, and traditional costumes. As years passed and the original purpose of Halloween became a part in folklore, people started to believe that in order to preserve stability and prevent mischief, they had to hand out gifts. The Celtics’ traditional and ornate clothing turned into mass produced and tacky costumes that are used once and thrown out.  Halloween today is nothing as it was in its originality.

Halloween lovers believe that the cost of dressing up and dressing out their homes justify the cost because of how much joy the holiday brings to young and old alike. Compared to Christmas costs (nearly $465 billion), $9 billion seems like chump change. $9 billion is still a huge chunk of cash that could be used for better things like building up your communities or helping those in need. I believe that we should not have to buy into corporate greed and bandwagon ourselves into spending money for our own amusement or pleasure.