Summer's Swelter Meets Halloween: The Rise of 'Summerween'

The hot days of summer have Americans facing extreme heat, and an early escape: Halloween.

What is Summerween?

Originally a reference to the TV show [Gravity Falls](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1865718/)*, where characters celebrate a Halloween-esque holiday in summer, it's now a pop-culture phenomenon. Halloween enthusiasts are encouraged to embrace the macabre months early.

Once a well-kept secret of retailers and Halloween fanatics, the spooky season has officially crept out of October and into summer.

Halloween's Slow Expansion

Enter a store in July, and you'll see black and orange amid the swimwear. By mid-August, most retailers are pushing Halloween. [Home Depot] (https://www.homedepot.com/b/Holiday-Decorations-Halloween-Decorations/N-5yc1vZc2ve?catStyle=ShowProducts) attributes this to customer demand, with their 12 ft. skeleton going viral in 2020. They now release Halloween décor online in July, and in-store by Labor Day.

Other retailers like Target and Lowe's followed suit this year, with early online sales and in-store previews in July.

Ever-Expanding Holidays

The early focus on Halloween lengthens the holiday season. Joel Davis, Executive Director of the [David F. Miller Retail Center of University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business], (https://warrington.ufl.edu/retail-center/) notes that even Christmas, with its extended season, didn't always get this treatment. In the early 1900s, Christmas shopping was last-minute, but this changed before World War I to relieve supply chain strain.

Now, retailers rely on holidays for up to 30% of annual sales, so they're incentivized to spread sales throughout the year. Halloween breaks down the Thanksgiving barrier, giving retailers access to holiday-themed sales before December.

2024 Halloween Trends

According to [Granularity] (https://granularity.ca/product), a trend forecasting service, the expansion of Halloween is more than a hunch:

• 2019: Peak sales in the last week of September.
• 2021 & 2022: Peaks two weeks earlier, with more August sales.
• 2023: Sales move another week earlier, mostly in mid-August.
• 2024: Peak sales in early August, six weeks earlier than 2019.

This Year's Trends:

• Pinkoween: Target, HomeGoods, and Michaels feature pastel skulls, pumpkins, and ghosts.
• Summerween: Celebrate summer with a touch of spooky.
• Dark Romance: Inspired by romance novels, up 51% since last October.
• Spooky Spaghetti: Easy, fun food trend, up 80% since last year.
• Ghostbusters: 2023's "Ghost Busters: Frozen Empire" will likely inspire costumes.

So, embrace the early creep of Halloween, whether you're a Skeleton-seeker or a cool autumn breeze enthusiast.