Holidays Going Down?

By Avery Hill

March 2022

COVID-19 has played a very large role in all of our lives in the past nearly 2 years, and holidays are one of the many things that are impacted in a very large way. Being near people that are not in your household will lead to extra possible exposure to the virus, creating large amounts of fear from all over the country. This fear factor led to different things year-round, but all fell under the same reasoning.

Halloween of 2020 was easily the year with the least amount of Trick-or-Treaters at least since 2015, having only 38% of parents confidently state they will allow their child to Trick-or-Treat. The no and unsure options were split with 31% each. Parents were afraid to have their children go door to door to constantly talk to other people and expose themselves to the virus. It’s safe to say that most parents were not willing to take that chance. In the end, there was about a 58% participation rate, 10% lower than 2019.

A large part of Thanksgiving was gathering with your family and spending time with them to celebrate. This was likely to not happen due to the fear of the virus, leading to possible short food exchanges, but not a full Thanksgiving celebration. These types of holidays just were not the same without the large gatherings. Other holidays such as the winter holidays (which may be religion dependent) became smaller versions of their former selves. Gifts were exchanged, but the large family gatherings were kept to a minimum. Every holiday had become a watered down version of its former self, adding to the already stressful and depressing times of the pandemic.

The restrictions made people restless so the amount of gatherings slowly began to rise. Thankfully, the release of the vaccine reduced that fear factor significantly and people were starting to do more things and others completely ignored the virus entirely. Egg hunts for Easter were not quite to their fullest yet, but at least the concept was starting to appear more often by 2021, in comparison to absolutely nothing in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic being fairly new. Halloween of 2021 had much more overall participation, now having 82% of parents confidently allowing their child to Trick-or-Treat, showing that thanks to the progression of vaccines and abilities to fight the virus, people became far less worried. As vaccines become more widespread and more people get them, the impact of the virus will greatly go down and eventually, things will become similar to how things were in 2019.

Bibliography:

Kiernan, John S. “Halloween Facts Infographic: Spooky Stats for 2021.” WalletHub, 25 Oct. 2021, https://wallethub.com/blog/halloween-facts/25374#:~:text=31%25%20of%20parents%20think%2013,up%2038%25%20from%202020).

Published by Statista Research Department, and Sep 24. “Halloween Participation in the United States 2015-2021.” Statista, 24 Sept. 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/243201/planned-halloween-participation-in-the-united-states/.

Trenda, Eloise. “Halloween: Parents Letting Their Children Trick-or-Treat U.S. 2020.” Statista, 16 Sept. 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/777768/us-consumers-plans-for-giving-candy-to-trick-or-treaters/.