I love Snopes.com - Urban Legends - - Barbara and David P. Mikkelson have one of the best sites on the web. - Informative and humorous both. If you have never visited them I suggest you do so. In fact if you have visited them do so again. Lots of new stuff going up all the time. Chances are you will find something you heard years ago and always believed was true. Visiting them will tell you, as Paul Harvey says... "The Rest of the story."
This is especially true with those pesky emails that get forwarded to you all the time... - Check them out on Snopes before you forward them to your friends and include Snopes reference URL if they are true OR false.
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I had heard a few years ago Halloween is the second-biggest U.S. holiday in terms of retail sales and thought the news a bit depressing. After all it is a pagan holiday and I am a Christian.
A new page Snopes.com has put up (dated 29 Oct 06) informs the world that Halloween is NOT the second biggest holiday in terms of U.S. retail sales. The Urban Legend is just that. An Urban Legend that is typically false.
We have seen an increase in Halloween decorations outside of homes. Sometimes entire blocks vie for the spookiest and scariest home in the neighborhood. This has given credence to the Urban Legend...
Well it seems the truth is that there are several Holidays that top Halloween in retail sales.
* Winter holidays (Christmas): $457.4 billion
* Mother's Day: $13.80 billion
* Valentine's Day: $13.70 billion
* Easter: $12.63 billion
* Father's Day: $9.01 billion
Then comes Halloween in 6th place with a paltry 5 Billion Dollars in retail sales...
Snopes.com gives the reason for the other holidays being on top is because the first five are holidays of giving.
- Quote - unless Halloween evolves into an occasion for giving on a scale considerably greater than handing out a bit of candy to bands of trick-or-treaters, it may not surpass occasions such as Mother's Day and Valentine's Day and approach the #2 slot in retail sales anytime soon. - end quote -
prying1 sez:
It heartens me that in America "giving" and not a pagan holiday is one of the main things that helps keep our economy strong. And it is something we can all do. I suggest doing it a lot in little ways.
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