I am spending some time in Sleepy Hollow, New York, visiting my daughter and her family. It is only mid-October, still two weeks before Halloween.

But you would never know it.

Halloween is already in full swing here. And I mean FULL swing!

Everywhere I look, the stores, storefronts, sidewalks, and streets are decorated with an extraordinary collection of ghosts, goblins, witches, skeletons, monsters, and all manner of creatures designed to frighten, amuse, or simply amaze you.

Some are scary. Some are funny. Some are downright bizarre. And some are so elaborate that I cannot imagine how much time, effort, and money went into creating them.

I find myself stopping every few minutes to take another picture.

These people are serious about Halloween!

Of course, Sleepy Hollow has something of an unfair advantage over virtually every other community in America.

It is the home of the Headless Horseman.

Remember Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow? Published in 1820, more than 200 years ago, it tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a rather superstitious schoolteacher, and his terrifying encounter with a mysterious rider who apparently has no head.

The story takes place right here, in the Hudson River Valley, with its old Dutch settlements, mysterious woods, ancient churchyards, and winding roads.

There is even an Old Dutch Church and a Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where Washington Irving himself is buried.

In fact, the village was once known as North Tarrytown, but in 1996 it officially changed its name to Sleepy Hollow. Now that is taking your literary heritage seriously!

Today, the community celebrates with haunted hayrides, cemetery tours, Halloween parades, street festivals, and thousands upon thousands of illuminated pumpkins.

And just how big a celebration has Halloween become here? Consider this. Sleepy Hollow is a little village of approximately 11,500 residents. Yet during the Halloween season, it attracts an estimated 200,000 visitors! That’s nearly 18 visitors for every person who lives here. Imagine what that does to a community of this size. And imagine how much enthusiasm for Halloween it must take to attract crowds like that!

And speaking of pumpkins!

Pumpkins everywhere!

Not just the traditional jack-o’-lanterns, either.

This year, Sleepy Hollow and its neighboring Hudson River communities have introduced something called the Rivertown Pumpkin Trail, a wonderful outdoor art exhibition featuring oversized decorative pumpkins transformed into works of art by local artists.

The pumpkins are displayed at various locations throughout the downtown areas of Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown, Irvington, Ardsley, and Dobbs Ferry.

We followed the trail through the village center, discovering these imaginative creations along the way.

What a delightful idea! Turn the downtown into an outdoor art gallery, invite everyone to explore it, and make the humble pumpkin the star of the show.

But perhaps the most extraordinary example of how seriously this community takes Halloween occurred last weekend.

The witches arrived.

Yes, witches.

My daughter participated, for the second year, in the local stand-up paddleboarding witches festival on the Hudson River.

Imagine a whole collection of women dressed in witches’ costumes, complete with pointed black hats, standing on paddleboards and making their way across the water!

I have photographs to prove it.

The event, held at Kingsland Point Park, includes music, food, vendors, and, of course, witches paddling on the Hudson.

Now, I have seen witches on broomsticks in cartoons and Halloween decorations for as long as I can remember.

But witches on paddleboards? On the Hudson River?

That was a new one for me.

And somehow, it seems perfectly natural in Sleepy Hollow, where the boundary between imagination and reality gets a little blurry every October.

All of this raises an interesting question.

Has Halloween become one of America’s most important holidays?

Four years ago, I wrote a blog about Halloween in which I argued that it ought to become a national holiday.

I made the case that Halloween brings families together, encourages creativity, gives children enormous pleasure, and allows all of us, at least briefly, to become someone or something entirely different.

I still believe that.

And I had no idea just how big Halloween was becoming.

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans are expected to spend an astonishing $13.5 billion celebrating Halloween in 2026. Nearly three-quarters of Americans plan to participate, and more than four out of ten plan to decorate their homes or yards.

Think about that. Billions of dollars on costumes, candy, decorations, and all manner of things designed to frighten or delight our neighbors.

Christmas surely remains our biggest holiday in many respects. Thanksgiving has its own special place in American family traditions.

But when it comes to decorating our communities, expressing our imaginations, and having fun being a little ridiculous, Halloween must be giving Christmas some serious competition.

And nowhere is that competition more evident than here in Sleepy Hollow.

What impresses me most is the sense of collective participation. The merchants, the artists, the families, the children, and even the paddleboarding witches are all contributing to something special.

It is almost as if the whole community has decided to put on a show.

And all of us are invited.

I wonder what Washington Irving would think if he could return to Sleepy Hollow today.

His little story about Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman has helped turn this quiet Hudson River community into one of America’s great Halloween destinations.

More than two centuries later, his imagination is still inspiring the imaginations of thousands of others.

I think he would be delighted.

And perhaps a little frightened.

Happy Halloween from Sleepy Hollow!