Scariest thing about Halloween is the money Americans spend on it

On October 31, every year, thousands of kids in the United States celebrate Halloween by wearing costumes depicting superheroes or witches or goblins or famous people.

They spent hours dressing up and they head out to go door to door in their neighbourhoods to collect candy.

In the annual ritual, the kids carry a plastic orange pumpkin with a smiling face and they ring doorbells, with their protective parents following behind them. In the funny or cute or gory costumes, they yell out "Trick or Treat," as you open the door.

You are supposed to scare them or hand out candy. Ninety five percent of Americans hand out candy and the other five percent try to scare them somehow. Sometimes it's a bowl filled with candy and a hand comes out to grab you as you try to lift out candy. A guess estimate will show you that 50 percent of kids want chocolate. The others like chewing gum or other kinds of sugared candy.

It's a high sugar day - a sweet festival - with a little fantasy thrown in. People love the concept of the scary evening so much that they decorate the outside of their homes and lawns with jack-o-lantern lights, skeletons and witches figurines. Adults dress up and throw parties.

Everyone gets to be someone else for the evening. Adults also dress up to come to the front door to hand out the treats.

Kids go to school dressed up in costumes and all teachers have classroom parties where they give out prizes for most creative or scariest costumes.

Little girls tend to go for sparkly princess costumes and the boys gravitate towards superheroes one like Spiderman and Superman. And then there are the scary ones with fake blood, grotesque masks and black robes. And carrying a weapon like an axe or scythe.

Every year, there are some costumes that are created after the people who are in the news. This year's big winners are Caitlyn Jenner, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump masks. Caitlyn made her transition from being Bruce Jenner a man to a woman and both Clinton and Trump are presidential candidates for the 2016 election.

Americans love to frighten and be frightened. It's all in the spirit of fun and games.

But the ones who are really laughing, all the way to the bank are the retailers. Or maybe they are cackling like pleased witches who plotted their sales strategies over a cauldron.

According to a new survey released by the National Retail Federation, Americans will spend $6.9bn this year on costumes, candy and decorations.

The average American they estimate will spend $74 which is a little lower than last year's figure of $77.

Of the $6.9bn, $2.5bn will be spent on costumes. Nearly $1.2mn will be on adult costumes, $950mn on children's costumes and $350mn on costumes for pets.

I personally spent $25 on candy to hand out to the kids. I usually wear a long black dress with a pointed witch's hat to greet the trick or treaters. I spent $9 years ago on the hat. Because witches are one of the most popular symbols of the festival. The word witches is derived from the Old English word wicce which means "wise woman". Traditionally, witches met on Halloween night.

Halloween, which is short for "Hallows Eve" is so named because it falls hours before All Saints Day on November 1.

This scariest day is the second highest grossing commercial holiday after Christmas.

Now that's spooky, wouldn't you say…?