Halloween becoming a big treat for Utahns

Halloween is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Everywhere you go, strands of pumpkin-shaped lights blink a dim orange and black. Rubber spiders dangle like mistletoe in doorways. Motion-sensor witches cackle at passers-by. Mechanical Frankensteins, inflatable bats and cardboard tombstones transform ordinary yards into eerie Transylvanian villages.

Dressing up for All Hallows Eve is much more than putting a jack-o'-lantern on the porch nowadays. An increasing number of homes along the Wasatch Front are decking the walls with gobs of spooky stuff.

"People have so much fun decorating for Christmas that it's spreading to Halloween," said Jane Saylor, assistant manager at Modern Display in Salt Lake City. "It kind of gets you more in the spirit."

Modern Display can't keep its ceramic Halloween villages on the shelf. It reordered the haunted houses and accessories three times.

"That is really big," she said. "That is bigger than Christmas is, almost."

What's driving this frenzied phenomenon? Hard to say. Marketing certainly has something to do with it. Some advertisers have even taken to calling this time of year the "Halloween season." Halloween is the second-largest decorating holiday of the year, according to the National Retail Federation.

"Manufacturers and retailers have seen an opportunity and seized it," said Dave Thomas, a Salt Lake advertising executive. "I think you've seen it slowly come on in the last 10 years with more and more homes getting into it."

There also might be some neighborhood one-upmanship at work. A skeleton hanging on the door is passe; stringing bat lights on the eaves is hip.

People feel pressured to do whatever people around them are doing, said Theresa Martinez, a University of Utah associate professor of sociology.

And Utahns seems to have particular fascination with the black-and-orange holiday. "In other places, I don't see Halloween celebrated the same way," she said.

Martinez attributes that to the state's family orientation and large numbers of children.

"It's really hard not to notice that here it is immense. It's huge."

At the Tom and Kelley George home in Salt Lake City, Halloween is bigger than Christmas.

From the row of scarecrows lining the front yard to the glowing spider on the roof to the Bates Motel bathroom in the basement and every creepy thing in between, the house on Cleveland Avenue screams trick-or-treat.