What is up with Halloween lights? When did they become a thing? I’m not dissing them, just all of a sudden, it’s not just Christmas lights anymore.
– Timothy P.
As we approach Halloween, the world outside begins to shift. Graveyards pop up in neighbors’ front yards. Zombie hands emerge from underground. Skeletons stand around guarding front porches. Cauldrons filled with potions bubble over, spilling smoke across the ground. Inflatable decorations sway in the wind next to carved jack-o’-lanterns. Purple and orange lights illuminate the streets after dark.
It hasn’t always been this way, though.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), total spending on Halloween decorations has been steadily increasing over the past few years. Candy and costumes remain among the most popular purchases, with estimated spending on candy to reach $3.9 billion, and costumes to reach $4.3 billion, according to the 2025 Halloween Spending Survey. But this year, surprisingly, Americans will spend an estimated $4.2 billion on decorations, representing a $400 million increase from 2024, according to the NRF annual consumer survey. This year marks a record high of per-person spending of $144.45.
Many houses around Licking County represent this trend in Halloween decor — like the “skeleton house” of West Broadway.
This year, a 12-foot-tall skeleton alongside his undead dog companion, with maybe their own bone in their mouth, stands guard over the white cottage home. Other skeletons scale the roof, porch columns and the property’s trees, attempting to get through the windows. Others emerge from bushes or carry their own coffins toward the front porch.
They look to be “invading the house,” according to homeowner Annie Bates. She’s not wrong: Even the inside of the Bates’ house is full of Halloween decorations. Cobwebs, dolls and even more skeletons fill the rooms of the home. But every year is a little bit different in how she decorates the house, as this is her third Halloween in Granville.
Every September, Bates enlists the help of a few local high school students to help her put up the decorations, as she’s afraid of heights. The group gets engrossed in the creative configurations of the skeletons to try and tell a story.
“It’s just been a really fun experience to get creative with it,” she said. “It’s such harmless fun, you can’t help but smile when you walk past it.”
Bates had previously worked at Hallmark in Kansas City for more than 14 years, where she designed cards and home decor lines. She now works at Bath and Body Works, and moved to the village about two years ago.
But the spur for Bates’ outdoor decorations came from within the house — her own daughter.
“My daughter, she’s going to be 13, from a very, very young age, is completely obsessed with [Halloween]. So her room is literally full of animatronics year-round. She has shelves of creepy babies….From probably 4 or 5 [years old] – she has adored it. So we just kind of got into it with her, and then it just started to grow,” said Bates.
Bates’ passion for decorating and her daughter’s love for the spooky created the perfect opportunity to go all out for Halloween.
But the decorations are more for just the Bates’ — they are meant to spark joy in the community.
“Kids stop and take pictures with them. Little kids, big kids, people walking by are always interacting with them. It’s just such a fun sense of community we have,” said Bates. “[Denison University] students yell down on us: ‘Hey, Granville residents, we love your decoration.’ So it is just a fun way to foster that camaraderie.”
Bates remembered one of the more recent times she brought the 12-foot skeleton out, bones scattered and deconstructed in a big Tupperware container, when a jogger came by. As he ran by, his face lit up and he exclaimed: “Big boy is coming out!” To her, those reactions are what it is all about.
Bates really attributes the shift in focus to the scope of Halloween decorating to the COVID-19 pandemic; the decorations were a way to bridge the gap between those quarantined in their homes.
“People were cramped in their houses. If you remember, Christmas lights went up way early, just because people wanted some sort of sense of community and trying to bring light to some not-so-great times…So [our decorations] is that little bit of levity and just that fun sense of community that Granville has,” Bates said.
Everything comes down on Nov. 1, and Christmas decorations go up quickly after that, but the skeletons even stay around for Christmas for the Bates.
The skeletons get propped up to decorate the house with lights draped over them and ornaments scattered around the yard. This year, the skeleton dog will put on its own costume in winter to become a reindeer.
Both of the holidays have become increasingly interchangeable in how they are celebrated, yet both give a treat to the community, or maybe a trick, one skeleton at a time.
Tyler Thompson writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.