THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 25, 1994 TAG: 9410250038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
NANCY BURNS dialed her Hallmark store last week and put the rest of its spider inventory on hold.
To get ready for Halloween, Burns bought a half dozen hairy-legged spiders - each as big as a fist - miles of fake webs, a nylon witch and one made of candy corn for her fireplace mantel. That doesn't include what she'd stored in a closet.
I've spent about $100 so far this year. I just keep adding as things come out and keep buying until I fill the house up,'' said the Virginia Beach resident. I've got a 5, 3 and 22-month-old and decorate my house for the kids.''
Largely because of kids, and parents who love them, Halloween has gone way beyond homemade costumes, fresh pumpkins and dime-store trick-or-treat candy.
It's become. . . big boo-siness.
``In sales of decorating items, Halloween comes in second only to Christmas,'' said Adrienne Lallo, spokeswoman for Hallmark Cards, Inc. based in Kansas City, Mo. In the last couple of years, the greeting card company has expanded its line of Halloween decorations to follow a recent upswing in consumer interest in ghostly doo-dads.
Vampire wannabees are sipping from pumpkin-shaped mugs, pouring from pumpkin teapots, eating candy corn from ghost bowls and seasoning food with witch salt and pepper shakers. For atmosphere, taped spooky sounds are available on cassette.
Demand for interior as well as exterior decorating items is up. Three years ago, Hallmark sold strings of mini-pumpkin lights. This year, they added strands of blinking eyeball lights. They're vanishing from shelves.
Local retailers, too, are jumping on the holiday haywagon and watching this season's sales figures rise - steady as steam in a witch's cauldron.
``It's becoming a very big holiday as far as decorating goes,'' said Ellen Wilhite, party store buyer/manager at Norfolk Wholesale Floral Corp. ``It seems that it's more of an adult market than it used to be. We're selling more paper plates and napkins because parents are having more parties at home rather than letting the kids go trick-or-treating.
The Halloween shop at the wholesale florist is alongside the Christmas section. The Halloween buying season starts in August. If shoppers wait too long, the good stuff is gone.
Creative people head for stores like Paul's Arts & Crafts on South Lynnhaven Parkway in Virginia Beach. Trinkets to decorate front door wreaths sold fast there.
``They've been buying little witches, little pumpkins, leaves, garland and ribbon - anything that goes on a wreath,'' said Heidi Williams, store manager. ``And flags. We're completely sold out of flags. They're all gone.''
Flags were hot items at McDonald Garden Center in Chesapeake, too.
``I've got maybe a dozen left,'' said Phyllis Whitehead, decorative manager. Some banners sold for as much as $90. ``People don't hold back. They like the more expensive look.''
A lot of shoppers have come into the garden center asking for the store's ``fall kit.'' It's a bundle of wheat straw, corn stalks, a bunch of Indian corn, a bow and a mum.
``They can decorate the front porch with it without any thinking,'' Whitehead said. ``And can leave it up till Thanksgiving.''
At other stores, fake spider webs are the first to go, followed by tissue paper ghosts and rubber creepy crawlers such as mice, rats and snakes. Teachers stuff dozens of cheap, little items into Halloween pinatas they buy for school parties.
``People seem to be going for cuter, traditional things rather than the scary, gory things,'' Wilhite said. That's with the exception of the floral wholesaler's hand-shaped candle, priced at $6.25. When each of the five fingertips are lit, it ``bleeds'' red.
``I did not order that,'' Wilhite said firmly, rolling her eyes.
With Christmas items already on the shelves, elbowing Halloween pumpkins, there is an eerie similarity between the decorating items being sold by retailers for both holidays.
At Barrington's in Greenbrier Mall, a line of miniature ceramic haunted houses that lights up is reminiscent of a series of Victorian Christmas Charles Dickens-era buildings.
For $8.95, the Norfolk floral company sells a 10-inch tall wooden nutcracker - dressed in a black cape and painted to resemble a friendly Dracula.
When it comes to trees, the line between seasons gets blurrier. Norfolk Wholesale Floral Corp. has tiny artificial spruce trees - painted black for Halloween. Mini-decorations extra.
Barrington's has black, paper-wrapped wire stick trees.
``You know another funny thing,'' mused Angie Henry, the Chesapeake gift shop's assistant manager, ``we sell them in white at Easter.''
Hallmark offers another option - a battery-operated plastic Halloween tree trunk with leafless branches. It shrieks ghoulishly and has red eyeballs that light up.
``We sell a lot of our Halloween jewelry as decorations,'' said Howell, showing the Hallmark store's bat earrings and skeleton brooches.
For shoppers too busy to mop up under a real pumkin, retailers now sell a low-maintenance version made of plastic foam.
``They're already carved. You don't have to mess with it,'' said Howell, in Virginia Beach. Not sold by the pound, a big fake runs about $15. No glop, no seeds, no post-Halloween ooze. Buy a pumpkin-scented candle for the inside and it smells just like the real thing.
KEYWORDS: HALLOWEEN
by CNB