In New Jersey, it’s July and a heatwave just ended. But In HomeGoods, there’s a chill in the air and it’s not just the A/C. It’s Halloween.
I went to one of their stores in Secaucus the other day looking to buy a cooler and a handheld fan. There I was, sweating in my tank top, shorts and flip flops, staring at a sea of bright orange and feeling personally attacked by all the “Welcome to Fall” and “Happy Halloween” signs.
I mean, I’ve always considered myself to be “that witch.” I love dressing up and love all things Halloween. But somehow, “It’s fall y’all” hits a little different when it’s not fall y’all — it’s 90-something degrees outside.
So, please hold the pumpkin spice everything, because this insidious level, of what I’ll call Halloween creep, is a little too frightening even for a self-proclaimed Halloween stan like me.
This isn’t to bash HomeGoods, either. It’s a string of stores. They all do it. And it should come as no surprise — last year, the National Retail Federation reported 45% of consumers surveyed were expected to start shopping for Halloween in September or earlier, up from 36% five years ago.
It’s a vicious cycle: If stores put holiday items on store shelves early, customers will shop early. If customers shop earlier, stores will likely put the items on shelves even earlier.
A 2019 Vox story about why Halloween is starting in the summer noted At Home, the “home decor superstore,” started stocking shelves with spooky merch as early as May 31. Yes, May.
It’s consumerism in America. And thanks to it, we’ve been dealing with the O.G. creep, Christmas creep — the gradual, and very annoying, lengthening of the Christmas season and of “holiday” sales — for years. And that’s been bad enough.
Then again, what I call “bad” spells big bucks for retailers. In 2021, holiday sales grew 14.1% to a record $886.7 billion, according to the NRF.
NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay, in a release in January 2022 said, “despite supply chain problems, rising inflation, labor shortages and the omicron variant, retailers delivered a positive holiday experience to pandemic-fatigued consumers and their families.” Consumers, Shay said, began their holiday shopping earlier than ever before.
And so the creep continues.
The National Retail Federation reported 45% of people it surveyed started shopping for Halloween decorations last year in September or earlier. There's already Halloween decorations on the shelves in HomeGoods and it's only July.
All the while, there’s the petitioning against playing Mariah Carey’s song (you know the one) before Dec. 1, the premature Christmas cheer, the shelves full of “Oh my god, I can’t believe they’ve already put it up,” merchandise. We begrudge Christmas for coming earlier every year, for sprinkling its joyous Christmas-ness on what’s supposed to be the spookiest time of the year and for, dare I say, haunting us?
We then throw our hands up in exasperation and ask, “What about Thanksgiving?!” Begrudging the “creep,” even as we give into it by singing along to carols and shopping for the items we just complained about, has become somewhat of a tradition in and of itself.
I’ll admit, I’m guilty. I’ve put oh-so-cute, salt-and-pepper shakers of Santa and Mrs. Claus kissing, in my cart two seconds after complaining about their untimely October appearance on the shelf.
But this is where I draw the line. I will not shop for Halloween decor sharing shelf space with marked-down Fourth of July stuff.
No matter how cute the salt-and-pepper shaker set of a zombie kissing his zombie bride may be. I won’t. I mean...maybe, I don’t know. No, I can’t. I have to be strong. We have to be strong.
Otherwise, there’ll be Valentine’s Day love in the air and skulls on the shelves come October. So here’s my petition: Let’s make Halloween in October again.
Daysi Calavia-Robertson may be reached at dcalavia-robertson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Instagram at @presspassdaysi or Twitter @presspassdaysi.
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