By LEANNE ITALIE and LINLEY SANDERS Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Sherry Jenkins is a Halloween person by default. She lives in Blairstown, New Jersey, a rural town where much of the original “Friday the 13th” horror movie was filmed.
That date is, of course, a huge draw for tourists, but the town and its residents are all in on promoting Halloween as well with a parade and other activities. Jenkins, 69, goes along with the vibe, hosting friends and handing out candy to 1,000 or more trick-or-treaters every year.
She’s not alone. About two-thirds of U.S. adults will celebrate Halloween in some way this year, with parents of kids under 18 especially likely to have plans, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
“We’re definitely where the party is,” Jenkins said, noting that she’s not on board with healthy alternatives to candy. “I did that one year when I got raisins, and everybody made fun of me.”
Jenkins decorates her yard and may dress up her dog in a butterfly costume. And she usually throws together a costume for herself last minute.
She’s in the majority when it comes to Halloween candy. Just 5% of U.S. adults say they will pass out healthy snacks instead of candy to children, according to the poll, which was conducted Oct. 9-13.
But Jenkins will be in the minority if the butterfly outfit makes it onto her dog: Only 9% of U.S. adults say they will dress up a pet in a costume.
Parents are more likely to be celebrating
About 8 in 10 parents of a child under 18 say they will do something to celebrate the holiday, compared with about 6 in 10 adults without young kids.
Parents are more likely than Americans overall to say they will take their kids trick-or-treating and dress their kids in costumes, and they’re also more likely to say they’ll wear a costume themselves.
In Kingman, Arizona, 34-year-old Jessica Byrd said Halloween is her favorite holiday. Her 15-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter are on board.
“I love the free candy, of course, and everybody’s nice to each other and welcoming on Halloween,” Byrd said.
The three will dress up and trick-or-treat together. Byrd picked Oogie Boogie from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Her teen son is going as Snorlax from Pokémon and her daughter will be Tigger from “Winnie-the-Pooh.”
Fred Joncas, 34, in Durham, North Carolina, has a 3-year-old daughter. They’ll also trick-or-treat — dad dressed as Abby Saja from “KPop Demon Hunters” and his toddler as a Pokémon character.
“We went last year and she loved it,” Joncas said. “That’s all I’ve been hearing since May: Halloween, Halloween.”
He has no plans to pass out candy, but about one-third of U.S. adults say they will be. A similar share, 31%, say they will watch a scary movie.
Back in Blairstown, Jenkins enjoys a horror watch when she’s in the mood. “It gets your heart rate going but it’s not real so you feel safe,” she said.
Mega-fans of Halloween
Byrd, in Arizona, is such a fan of Halloween that the inside of her home is decorated with witches, skeletons and bats year-round.
“It’s creative and nice to express that creativity,” she said of the holiday.
About 3 in 10 U.S. adults say they’ll display Halloween decorations in their home or yard, and about one-quarter will carve a pumpkin.
Kathy Rice, 75, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is a huge Halloween person. She fondly remembers the holiday from her childhood.
“I’m from a large family and we had a big neighborhood with lots of kids,” she said. “Everybody made a big deal out of Halloween.”
Rice loves decorating for Halloween inside and out. There’s a big furry spider at the front of her house. She goes with faux pumpkins for the yard, including two large ones with lights. And there’s a huge footed cauldron with a sign: “Trick-or-treat, smell my feet!”
She and a neighbor have a Halloween tradition all to themselves. They leave each other treats in her cauldron during spooky season.
“So far this year I’ve left her some magazines, cookies and a little decoration,” Rice said. “She left me a cookie, some bubblegum eyeballs and a clip for my hair that has really weird Halloween hands on it.”
Halloween, but not too much
Not everyone is over-the-top for Halloween, but they enjoy it nonetheless. Karalyn Kiessling, 31, in South Lyon, Michigan, puts her husband and herself in that category.
“We’re moderate Halloween people,” she said. “We like to dress up and go to Halloween parties with our friends but we don’t have kids yet so we’re not huge, huge into it. We don’t decorate our whole house or anything, but not crossing that out for later.”
Kiessling just had surgery that left a scar on her neck. “I’m thinking of being Bride of Frankenstein this year,” she said with a laugh.
While the couple doesn’t watch horror movies to mark Halloween, they have another tradition along those lines: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
“It’s fun and campy. It’s a cult classic,” Kiessling said. “We love it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington.
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The AP-NORC poll of 1,289 adults was conducted Oct. 9-13, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.