While the economy is recovering, we as a nation have still not recovered our swagger, at least judging by this Halloween.
Surveys report that there will be fewer parties, fewer haunted houses, less candy, fewer decorations and more handmade and reused costumes. The celebration will be especially subdued among those who traditionally party the hardest on Halloween, the 18-to-24-year-old crowd. The National Retail Federation says their individual spending will fall from $86.59 last year to $68.56 this year.
Saturday night there will be Transformers, Harry Potters, superheroes and zombies as well as plenty of the traditionally most popular costumes - vampires, princesses, police officers and pirates. It may be reading too much into it but the federation says nurse costumes this year fell from fifth to 13th most popular. New this year, and especially symbolic of the times, is a mask of Bernie Madoff, the crooked investor who bankrupted himself and wrecked the finances of thousands of others in a giant Ponzi scheme.
One hopes that next year the 18- to 24-year-olds will be back celebrating Halloween with their usual overkill; that Bernie Madoff is a bad memory; and that nurses will be restored to their rightful place in the hierarchy of costumes.
