Spooky Walk
A skeleton knight riding a full-sized dragon. A bloody severed hand hanging out of the trunk of a car. Life-sized mummies. It seems like Halloween decorations are getting more intense and elaborate every year. The Halloween season seems to get earlier every year too.
The data backs that up. This year, Americans were estimated to spend $13.1 billion dollars on Halloween — $4.2 billion of that on decorations (more than we spend on costumes or candy!). And retailers are putting out Halloween merchandise earlier, especially this year due to the tariffs (perhaps unsurprisingly, we get most of our Halloween stuff from China). My anecdotal observations turned out to be correct - Halloween is coming earlier every year.
There aren’t many front yards in San Francisco, but people still figure out how to get into the spooky spirit. One day I walked way up the hill from my apartment to Pacific Heights — one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in a city of immense wealth. It has a street informally named Billionaire’s Row. It’s the kind of neighborhood where people hire professional Christmas light companies to decorate the outside of their houses.
Despite the lack of front yards, the rich people still got into the holiday spirit. There was a rather sad and dull display of dozens of beige pumpkins. Ghosts in trees along the street. A smattering of skeletons. A murder of beady-eyed crows on a gate. Nothing too gruesome. Definitely nothing home-made.
One of the things I love about wandering the same streets again and again is seeing how the houses change over the seasons. The decorations for various holidays bring out the personality of the homeowners a bit. Something private made public.
Tonight I’ll head out to one of my favorite walks of the year - the Dia de los Muertos procession through the Mission. The homemade altars and burning sage will be a very different vibe than the commercial decorations of Billionaire’s Row — and for that I am thankful.