THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT
Costume-seekers, young and old, get in the Halloween spirit at Spirit Halloween
WOONSOCKET — Clasping fistfuls of face paint and makeup, Cody West was looking for just the right hue to transform himself from an everyday 33-year-old city resident into a ghoulish, haunting voodoo witch doctor.
“I’m sprucing it up … I want to go scary this year,” West said as he perused aisles of bold colors. “This year, I’m putting time into it.”
West was on the hunt for the perfect costume, as were dozens of other shoppers inside Spirit Halloween on Park Av- enue Friday evening – with many adults preparing for an upcoming Halloween party while children were seeking out the right look for trick-or-treating. The seasonal chain, which appears in Park Square every autumn just as the leaves change colors, has hundreds of costumes for all ages, plus spooky and creepy accessories and home décor.
West was preparing his voodoo witch doctor costume for a pair of parties, saying that he wanted to put in an appropriate amount of time and effort to both frighten and impress his friends.
“My favorite part is at the parties, seeing my friends dress up and have fun,” West said. “It shows you don’t have to be a kid to have fun.”
That said, he was quick to note that as an adult, he finds Halloween to be a more time-consuming holiday than it was when he was a child, when all he needed to do was wear a mask, carry around a basket, and collect candy from neighbors.
“But I like seeing the time and effort,” he said. “I know someone will put in way more time than me, but I like to see what others think.”
Halloween is a $9 billion industry,
according to the National Retail Federation. Trick-or-treaters young and old are expected to spend an average of $86.79 on the holiday this year, up from last year’s average of $86.13, and more than 175 million Americans anticipate that they’ll celebrate the holiday in some way. Those figures are all good news for Spirit Halloween, a pop-up holiday shop which has locations in Woonsocket and nationwide. As the employees there watch and assist as crowds browse through aisle upon aisle of costumes on a daily basis, some are impressed that the holiday still has this much cachet.
“This is my first year, I didn’t know people were so super-excited about this,” employee and Woonsocket resident Sandy Jacques said. “They just love it. They want to get dressed up. No one can judge them. Even when you’re older, you go allout.”
The most popular costumes this year for children are based around the popular online video game Fortnite, according to Jacques and fellow employee Ray Blais.
“That’s the biggest, all the kids want it but we’re already sold out,” Blais said.
Jacques added: “Fortnite is unreal. We don’t have any left.”
And what costume was seven-year-old Woonsocket resident Raymond searching for on Friday evening? No Halloween shocks here: it was Fortnite.
“I’m going to be a Fortnite Skull Trooper because Fortnite is my favorite game,” Raymond said. (His parents requested that his last name not be published.) “My favorite part of Halloween is the can- dy. My favorites are Starburst, Skittles, and lollipops.”
Jacques and Blais said the most popular costumes for adults this year tend to be centered around Overwatch, a team-based video game, and the Day of the Dead holiday, but some of the shoppers on Friday night were finding costumes that deviated from the most sought-after.
Cranston resident Jay Curtis was shopping for himself and his wife, as they were planning to celebrate as Zero the ghost dog and Sally the rag doll from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Why? “It’s my wife’s favorite movie,” Curtis said.
“It’s definitely fun to walk around with our daughters (on Halloween night). It brings back fond memories of when I was walking around with my dad,” Curtis said. “Since I have kids, it’s now their celebration and excitement of getting candy and getting dressed up, the things I enjoyed. You know, ‘One more house! One more street!’”
Meanwhile, Attleboro resident Nikki Dabronzo was making a last-second stop at the store before heading off to a Halloween party on Friday night. Dabronzo was trying to find the perfect blonde wig to cover her brown hair, which would aid as she morphed herself into World Wrestling Entertainment superstar and former Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss.
“My boyfriend is a professional wrestler … I thought it would be topical before their show tomorrow,” she explained.
But while getting dressed for the holiday is one part that entertains Dabronzo, so too is the ability to become a kid at heart for at least one night every year.
“My favorite part is getting together as friends and dressing up and living like a kid,” she said. “It’s fun to have another excuse to be a kid again.”