In the US it's definitely one of the big holidays, but it's not as big as Christmas.
In Europe it's not, though apparently it is gaining some ground. It was more well known in the UK and Ireland, but not outside of there. It seems to mostly be a tradition that came over from (I believe) Ireland with the immigrants, and it expanded once over here.
Christmas is the biggest holiday here because it's the biggest commercial opportunity. The Christmas stuff will start hitting stores in September, mark my words. And the massive gift buying push will go crazy just after Thanksgiving (late November), with the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) usually being the biggest retail sales day of the year. The push to buy stuff for Christmas is completely perverse.
With Halloween candy is the biggest seller, and then you have costumes and decorations, but commercially you can't market it quite as much as Christmas. Halloween is often the favourite holiday amongst kids though, because it's a lot of fun... you get to dress up, the holiday is spooky, and you get candy. What's not to love.
Either way, the mass commercialisation of all the holidays is just nauseating. As soon as Christmas is over, you start seeing red and pink crap for Valentine's Day (along with ads on tv for guys to buy their women diamonds... most ads are geared at guys buying women stuff, never the other way around). Then after Valentine's day Easter is the big decoration/card holiday, unless St. Patrick's day falls earlier, but that's also not as widely marketable. Then it goes mostly quiet, but with some patriotic decorations for things like Memorial day (late May) and Independence Day early July is another one where fireworks etc. are sold.
The whole spirit of each holiday is raped by the money grubbing attitude of companies. And it's sad.
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Date: 2007-08-12 03:16 pm (UTC)In Europe it's not, though apparently it is gaining some ground. It was more well known in the UK and Ireland, but not outside of there. It seems to mostly be a tradition that came over from (I believe) Ireland with the immigrants, and it expanded once over here.
Christmas is the biggest holiday here because it's the biggest commercial opportunity. The Christmas stuff will start hitting stores in September, mark my words. And the massive gift buying push will go crazy just after Thanksgiving (late November), with the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) usually being the biggest retail sales day of the year. The push to buy stuff for Christmas is completely perverse.
With Halloween candy is the biggest seller, and then you have costumes and decorations, but commercially you can't market it quite as much as Christmas. Halloween is often the favourite holiday amongst kids though, because it's a lot of fun... you get to dress up, the holiday is spooky, and you get candy. What's not to love.
Either way, the mass commercialisation of all the holidays is just nauseating. As soon as Christmas is over, you start seeing red and pink crap for Valentine's Day (along with ads on tv for guys to buy their women diamonds... most ads are geared at guys buying women stuff, never the other way around). Then after Valentine's day Easter is the big decoration/card holiday, unless St. Patrick's day falls earlier, but that's also not as widely marketable. Then it goes mostly quiet, but with some patriotic decorations for things like Memorial day (late May) and Independence Day early July is another one where fireworks etc. are sold.
The whole spirit of each holiday is raped by the money grubbing attitude of companies. And it's sad.