It's not nearly as popular as the winter holidays, or even most of the "Hallmark Holidays", but Halloween holds its own in terms of parties, decorating, and of course, merchandise.

To give you an idea of what we Americans will do and spend this year, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel did some research and rounded up a few interesting stats about this haunted holiday:

- 28.3% of us will either throw or attend a Halloween party. (Meaning 71.7% will stay home to keep their house from getting egged.)

- 18.7% will visit a haunted house. (Not counting you married guys who live in a haunted house. All. Year. Long.)

- 73% will hand out candy, with the most popular among trick-or-treaters being chocolate bars with a huge 68%. Lollipops (9%), gummy candy (7%), gum (7%), and "other" (9%), round out the also-rans.

- One third (33%), will take a child trick or treating. (And dig through their bag after they go to bed looking for the best stuff.)

- Almost half of Americans (48%) will decorate their home or yard. (The rest will have it decorated for them by bands of drunken high school kids.)

- 43% will carve pumpkins. (No stats on how many will accidentally plunge the knife into their hand.)

- Who dresses up more, kids or adults? This year, only 26% of kids will dress up, while 34% of adults plan to.

- The top kid's costumes for 2007:
Princess (4.2 million)
Spider-Man (1.9)
Pirate (1.8)
Witch (1.6)
Fairy (1.1)

- For adults:
Witch (5.7 million)
Pirate (1.3)
Vampire (1.0)
Cat (.85)
Princess (.75) (I guess when little girls grow up they give up on finding Prince Charming.)

- The average person is predicted to spend almost $65 this year on Halloween, with $17.73 going to decorations, $19.84 for candy, $3.92 for cards and the largest portion, $23.33, went towards those witch and pirate costumes.

- Last year we spent $4.96 billion on Halloween. Sound like a lot to spend on a minor holiday? It came in last to Father's Day ($9.01 billion), Easter ($12.63), Valentine's Day ($13.70), and Mother's Day ($13.80). The major "Winter Holidays"? Over $457 billion was spent.


Sources: Census Bureau, Dept. of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, National Retail Federation.