With All Hallows Eve fast approaching, there are pumpkins to carve, ghosts and skeletons to post on the front lawn, and costumes and trick-or-treat candy to buy. Americans love to make Halloween spooktacular, but the recession has made this year especially frightening.
Total Halloween spending for 2009 is expected to drop to $4.75 billion, down from $5.77 billion in 2008. Here is a peek at what goes into making Halloween a ghoul-o-time.
Statistics provided by the National Retail Federation, National Confectioners Associations, U.S. Census and NASS.
By Amy Pollak
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Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere
Finding the perfect pumpkin should be no problem, with an estimated autumn harvest of 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins, about the same as last year's harvest. Illinois still leads the nation in pumpkin production with 496 million pounds, but that's down from 542 million in 2008.
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BOOgie Down
Just because you're too old to trick-or-treat doesn't mean you can't dress up and have a little fun. One-third of adults say they plan on wearing a costume or throwing or attending a Halloween party. Most popular costume choice for women: witch, same as last year. Most popular for men: pirate, the perennial favorite.
Vampires are climbing the charts, too: Twilight and True Blood, anyone? Michael Jackson, Sarah Palin, Kate Gosselin, and even Bernie Madoff also may make an appearance or two at your door.
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Smashing Pumpkins
More than 20,000 people gather each year near Bridgeville, Del., to watch orbs of orange fruit (yes, pumpkins are botanically classified as fruit) being flung across an open field. At the World Championship Punkin' Chunkin' contest, 72 teams of innovators compete to hurl pumpkins the farthest distance.This trebuchet designed by Team Yankee Seige (at right) holds the world record in the Adult Trebuchet category with a distance of 1,897.47 feet -- that's more than a quarter of a mile!
This year's contest will take place November 6-8, after Halloween is over.
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