For Halloween shoppers, towering lawn displays now sit inside a market expected to draw a record $13.5 billion in spending this year, with spending on decorations rising from $2.6 billion to $4.3 billion.
The change began with Home Depot retail teams, which spent 2019 developing a yard decoration meant to feel larger than life and overpowering.
Home Depot introduced the 12-foot skeleton, nicknamed Skelly, in 2020 for $299, during the first Halloween of the COVID-19 pandemic. It quickly sold out. Some resold for around $1,000.
The giant skeleton has since become a fixture of Halloween displays across the United States. Shoppers haul home boxes that weigh eighty-five pounds and barely fit in a standard car trunk.
By 2024, Home Depot had quadrupled production from Skelly’s first year and expanded its range of giant Halloween decorations fivefold. The retailer has introduced at least one new giant each year since 2021. Its seasonal line has included undead horses, multi-headed plants studded with bones, towering reapers and motion-activated pumpkin kings.
Rival retailers have built their own oversized offerings. Lowe’s sells a 15-foot headless Skeleton Watcher that holds its severed skull aloft and sends spotlight beams from glowing eyes. Sam’s Club sells animatronics reaching 12 feet, and its 11-foot Towering Reaper ranks among its 10 best-selling Halloween items this year. Visits to Sam’s Club’s Halloween décor listings were 67% higher in July than a year earlier.
The store floor has changed with the merchandise. Home Depot’s Halloween range occupied a single endcap in 2013; by 2026, its displays could take up more than 800 square feet.
Shoppers are starting sooner, too. Nearly half planned to begin Halloween shopping by September or earlier this year, compared with about a third a decade ago.
Skelly has also become a canvas for the holiday’s commercial afterlife. Arby’s released a $46.66 “Meat Sweats” tracksuit this year, designed to fit a 12-foot skeleton. Home Depot updated Skelly for 2026 with a companion mobile app that lets owners chat with trick-or-treaters in real time or record up to 30 custom voice lines.
Social media has helped keep the decoration in view. A video showing two Skellies dressed as characters from the Chicks’ song “Goodbye Earl” drew more than 12 million views on TikTok this fall.
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