You do not need another piece of plastic

Spooky season, capitalism, & curbing the urge to shop

Beloved witches, it is the first day of September. The air is crisp, the sun is hot, and the leaves on my sweetspire bush are starting to turn their glorious russet-wine color. Autumn is barely a breath away, and my sweater-loving self cannot wait.

But listen. We need to talk about that pumpkin-scented rumble on the horizon, that black-glittered ghoul lurking just off-camera, that spooky-fonted siren already taking the big inhale. We need to talk about Halloween merch.

Not my picture, not my Target, not even taken this year.

Look, my little ghoulies, I get it. We are grown ups, with disposable income, in a time when our favorite aesthetics have surged to the fore. Witchcraft’s boom into the common culture has meant we don’t have to trek two counties over to find a new tarot deck or buy a fresh clutch of chime candles. We don’t have to wait for a three-week window in October to snatch up spiderweb table runners. The internet is open 24/7, and we can indulge our inner teen witch with battery-operated flickering black candles & next-day delivery. Truly, we live in an age of wonder.

But I’m going to turn on The Big Light for a second, and remind us all of the unflattering details behind those tantalizing displays & endless online options. My cuties, it is all (mostly) plastic, it is big business, and as witches, we do not need any of it.

No shade to this particular creator, but also, alllll the shade for “haul” content

The Halloween retail landscape continues its remarkable evolution, with industry projections indicating spending will reach approximately $11.6 billion in 2025. For wholesale buyers and B2B resellers, this represents not just a seasonal opportunity but a significant revenue driver that merits strategic planning and early positioning.

Globalsources.com

Click through that link & have a quick read. Look how absolutely breathless the industry is at the thought of selling us a shit ton of stuff. Look at all the different trigger points they’re queueing up to entice us to buy, buy, buy: Summerween! “Green Halloween Growth”! "Smart retailers are creating seamless product progressions that encourage multiple purchases throughout the season." Does it make you queasy? It does me, and my day job is selling things on the internet.

Target is probably the largest, best recognized Halloween merch launch here in the States, and I fully admit to having a few well loved items from their lines over the years. (My skull print, woven fabric tablecloth shown above will die with me.) Once upon a time, I justified my annual browse of their bat-bunting draped aisles by only buying “a few things” while I was picking up tissues and dish soap. But when Target dropped DEI like a hot rock the instant Inauguration Day was over, I had to come to terms with the hollow reality of my affiliation with the big red ring. Despite my mental gymnastics, Target was just like all the other companies I’d boycotted over the years. They stripped their policies that protected and advanced Black and queer employees and vendors, then turned around and launched PRIDE and Juneteenth merch, anyway. What was the likelihood that, given the current trajectory of our national politics, non-Christian religions & belief systems (witchcraft included) would at some point cease to be tolerated in the Target workplace? What were the chances that their Halloween merch would still get rolled out right on schedule, as long as it continued to sell? Suddenly, doing “a little spooky shop” at Target feels super gross, supporting the exploiter, and profoundly un-witchy.

But this tangled web I’m unpicking isn’t only comprised of billion dollar corporations that don’t deserve our money. It’s made of smaller retailers as well, of Etsy shops and our local metaphysical stores and our favorite makers. Halloween, & increasingly witchcraft in general, is deeply coded in the US as a shopping opportunity. I make a disproportionate amount of my annual income because of this impulse, as do many of my fellow makers. A big part of me is grateful for & reliant on the Halloween bump, and I’m deeply invested in small businesses succeeding in this increasingly centralized capitalist hellscape.

But two things can be true at the same time, and buying more stuff when we are drowning in consumer level trash, stuff that is frequently rooted in extractive, exploitative industries, feels at odds with a witchcraft practice centered in responsibility to our land & communities. We can support our fellow makers and small businesses while also looking critically at our urges to cyclically consume and possess. We can remember that our witchcraft, our enjoyment of the season, and our validity are not contingent on the items that we buy & own. We are still witches without any of these trappings. If anything, I think we can better connect to the intrinsic nature of our craft when we are untethered from the cycle of acquisition. I don’t like issuing firm declaratives in this space, but I’m going to say this: We cannot buy ourselves meaningful, fulfilling practices. A new tarot deck, tchotchke, or mass-produced bauble is not what stands between us and the craft we yearn for. Aesthetic is not practice. Shopping is not witchcraft.

I am not here to tell you that you can’t enjoy the aesthetics of spooky season, or that you shouldn’t buy anything between now & November. What I am saying is that no amount of orange and black flocked plastic will make your witchcraft practice more meaningful, more fulfilling, more sustainable. Witchcraft takes time, it takes work, it takes effort. Witchcraft does not need you to spend money. It needs you to give of yourself. Close that browser tab, skip the Target run, and use that time to create something meaningful yourself. Autumn is coming. Open your arms and welcome it.