Halloween Pickups 2025

There’s little point in not doing Halloween articles from here on out. I mean until Halloween, not beyond that—I’ll need the four weeks in November to fit in all my Thanksgiving posts. There should be endless fodder for that. Although, I’ll have to make a new banner, hmm…

A worry for another time. Let’s justify the stuff I picked up at Target the other day. There’s no return revenue stream coming in from all this, so I’ll feel better if I write about all this clutter that’s continually accumulating.

Zombie and Kitty Plushes

Much of the Target fatigue rests in how cutesy they portray Halloween. I get it… sort of. There’s a place for the scary and macabre, but I truly don’t mind the lighter aspects as well. If a zombie posing for a silly selfie and a kitty dressed in the fresh carcass of a slain sheep while presenting a gift and/or threat aren’t what the season can represent, then I don’t know what does.

The fuzzy brain is a nice touch, and I suppose that’s not a sheep pelt but rather a ghost. It does beg the question of why both are fluffy, though. I mean, I know they’re plushes, but there are fabric options, so this feels eerily deliberate.

Cards and Stickers

There are some basic supplies I always need each season, so such trips aren’t entirely frivolous. Sticks baffle me when it comes to pricing. You can get three dozen for a dollar, a booklet of hundreds for some pocket change, and then you’ll find a single sheet of ten for like $7. I think this one fell into the middle example, which on one hand is good, but on the other hand, I can’t use terminology like “former” or “latter,” since I lack the culture to know what the proper words are for the middle stuffs.

Cards are equally maddening. Birthdays are just the worst when you need to find a card to accompany the $10 gift card to Tractor Supply, and all they offer are cringe-worthy jokes for $5+. Fortunately, here we have a pack that advertises less than a dollar per card, so I got away cheap.

I know some are hoping for a card to arrive so bills aren’t the only thing keeping the ol’ mailbox from collecting cellar spiders, but as George Carlin once said, “It’s a club, and you ain’t in it.”

Seaonal Birds

The few of you that follow the Halloween Countdown likely are all too familiar with the yearly array of birds. They come out for every season, but Halloween is the time I buy several more despite my inner monologue telling me that under no circumstances do I need a single addition to the tribe.

Other places like Stop & Shop have their own, but I stick to the OG group. Not only are the legs wrapped in felt so they don’t scratch the irreplaceable lid to my record player, but they all have names and dates appended to their legs. Perhaps this alludes to some illicit ownership scandal, but at least I know what to call them in the meantime.

Bat, I think...

Target is nothing if not consistent, sometimes to the complaints from the vocal parts of the internet. I take some comfort in it, nevertheless. There’s always going to be the birds, the soft-character duos that hold hands (hotdog and ketchup, X’s and O’s, teeth and cavities, death and taxes, etc.), and the mantle props. Years ago, we were graced with the vampire dragons, which we all lovingly dubbed Dinosaur Dracula in homage to the man we all owe a collective debt to if you run a nostalgia site.

This year is no different, and I’m marginally sure this is a bat. There’s a glittery frenulum under the arms and something vaguely approximating teeth and ears. It looks more like a whimsical, nondescript Halloween monster, but in the end, why not both?

Adopt a Creature

Last, we have the saving grace of the bargain bin. When you first walk in, there’s the stuff slobs like me can afford, ranging from $1 to $5. I already wrote about this last week, but it bears repeating. Not in depth, but in passing.

Much like the MadBalls copies, there are only three to choose from, but at a total of $3 rather than $15, I’m quite happy with this turn of events. I’m sure these would serve well as either party favours or trick-or-treat gifts for the bad kids.

It’s nearly impossible to see what’s inside despite being right up against the packaging window. Two figures are pitch black, so that doesn’t help. Time to open them up with the assistance of a 3D-printed box cutter that will no doubt spur forthcoming legislation.

They appear to be a cross between plastic and rubber, neither material feeling like it’s a suitable descriptor. The bat had a gap above its head, as seen by the zombie trying to see if anything of worth was inside. The cat had an equally concerning gap, but in another area that I won’t show you.

The zombie appears to have more in common with Gollum than the undead, but Gollum was on death’s door anyway, so perhaps it’s not too far off. Bonus points for the fact that he can stand on his own, though. The packaging helped there at least. As for the cat’s googly eyes, the less said the better.