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Halloween spirit
By ALICIA CALDWELL, Times Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG -- Streets in the Old Northeast neighborhood will be blocked off come Thursday night. Smoke machines will fog the landscape, and stately two-story colonials will turn into haunted houses. While kids will get Snickers bars, more than a few friendly homeowners will offer grownups the trick-or-drink option, and they're not pouring Juicy Juice. This is Halloween Central. "The only bad part of that is that you have to drink what they give you," said Ellen Ramirez, 55, an Old Northeast resident who was edging the grass in preparation for the hours of decorating that would follow. Few neighborhoods do Halloween like the Old Northeast. However, since the mid 1990s, a lot more have come close. Nationwide, Halloween spending has nearly tripled since 1995, according to annual surveys by the National Retail Federation, an industry group based in New York. "It used to be that you'd go to the produce stand, buy a pumpkin and carve it," said Dell deChant, a University of South Florida instructor who has written about consumerism at the holidays. "Now, it's a whole new line of consumption." Marketing types increasingly see it as a "promotional window" for retailers who can turn the holiday into an "autumn seasonal celebration." This year, consumers are expected to spend nearly $7-billion on decorations, candy and costumes. Neither the slowing economy nor the threat of war appears to have had much effect on Halloween spending this year. A NRF nationwide telephone survey of 1,000 adults during two days in September showed that American households planned to spend an average of $44 on Halloween, just a dollar less than last year. On Thursday, John Barber squatted over a long extension cord at his Ridge Manor home in Hernando County, putting the finishing touches on his seasonal masterpiece. All over his yard, trees, bushes, even the house are eerie orange and sickly green lights. On October nights, the house glows like it's radioactive. It takes Barber, 32, and his family almost the entire month of October to get ready for the big night, when he typically dons a monkey suit (literally) and gets about 200 trick-or-treaters. "Every year, I add just a little bit, but I've been doing this for a long time," he said.
The seasonal decorating extravaganza also is in full evidence in Hyde Park in Tampa. Gary Day said that when he moved into the neighborhood two years ago, he was bowled over by the enthusiastic celebration of the holiday. He said he had to go to the store four times to buy more candy. It's a lot of fun, he said, and a growing tradition in the neighborhood. "It's like being a kid again. We have a great time, so this year, it will be even bigger," said Day, 42, who has a giant purple spider on his house. "I've noticed more people in the neighborhood since last year have started really decorating. Even on our street, it's growing and growing." Not everyone, of course, pursues the holiday with as much fervor. Although Molly Camp, 35, very much enjoys the spectacle that is Halloween in the Old Northeast, she doesn't go all out like some of her neighbors. Part of that has to do with having a 6-month-old baby, and part is because she and her husband are not "big decorators." "I have very pathetically put pumpkin lights in one bush, but that's about it," she said. "There will be more, though." And that's not difficult to do, given the explosion of Halloween decorations that have hit the shelves in recent years. A visit to a St. Petersburg party store showed the array of Halloween decorations available: a bloody, moving hand for $16.99; a 61/2-foot-tall grim reaper for $59.99; eyeball candles for $3.49; and an inflatable cauldron cooler for $14.99. Not only have halloween decorations gotten more elaborate, but the celebration of the holiday also has been stretching over weeks instead of days. The more affluent neighborhoods tend to be the trendsetters, deChant said, because those homeowners have the disposable income. Increasingly, adults have made the holiday a party for themselves as well as their children. They're donning costumes and having parties instead of merely chaperoning the little ones. "What happens when adults get involved is that it becomes more important to have just the right costume," he said. "It's important for the kids to have the best costumes, too." Woodlawn is another St. Petersburg neighborhood that does Halloween in a big way. John Terlip, 42, moved there a decade ago and soon realized that the holiday was an excuse for a block party. "They cook more than 500 hot dogs for the kids," he said, gesturing to a house around the corner. "This neighborhood is notorious for Halloween." In keeping with the spirit, Terlip started a family project about five years ago, the result being a giant spider, her baby and a dragonfly. The figures occupy a DayGlo web in the gable of their house. "It didn't start out to be quite that big," he said. "We took a trip to Home Depot and bought some supplies, and the next thing I knew, we had a 5-foot or 6-foot spider." The kids enjoyed the project, and so did he. They add something to it each year. Terlip said that when he was a kid, the holiday was a far simpler affair. Finding a costume was as easy as rounding up some old clothes. "We were hobos," he said. "Every year." -- Times staff writers Shannon Breen, Lea Iadarola and Joy Davis-Platt contributed to this report.
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