Halloween

2009 Product News

• Hallmark offers more than 325 Halloween cards, including cards for children, humor cards, and even cards from the dog or cat.
• The line includes Cards With Sound featuring hot properties such as Twilight and Harry Potter and classic favorites such as The Wizard of Oz and Cinderella, as well as songs such as “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow. In addition to cards for children and anyone, the line includes more adult-to-adult cards with characters from The Simpsons, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, plus favorite Hallmark characters Maxine and hoops&yoyo.
• New to this season, Hallmark introduces cards that come to life with lights and sound. For example, one card has eyes across the cover that light up while it plays “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Morris Day.
• Some Cards With Sound offer dueling speakers that feature characters or a song that goes back and forth on the card’s speakers or colored push buttons that enable the recipient to push multiple buttons inside the card to hear different sounds or spoken words.
• Other innovative designs provide a fully animated scene using 48 photographic frames taken in sequence – giving the effect of a two-second video clip. Some of these cards also include sound. 
• Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF collection boxes are available free at Hallmark Gold Crown® stores again this year. Created by kids in 1950, Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF is a way for kids to Make Halloween Count©. Now in its 59th year, Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF has empowered generations to save children’s lives around the world during the Halloween season for UNICEF. To date, more than $148 million has been raised. In addition, participating Hallmark Gold Crown stores offer 4 UNICEF Halloween card designs.
• The Frankenbeagle stuffed animal showcases Snoopy carrying a trick-or-treat bag. Press the button on Snoopy’s paw, and you hear eerie haunted-house music while his bag begins to rustle and vibrate before Woodstock pops out of it. Other Peanuts® stuffed characters include Sally Brown dressed as a princess and Lucy Van Pelt dressed as a witch. When you press the button on these characters, you hear audio clips from the TV show, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
• Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments offers Halloween ornament designs featuring six favorite Peanuts® characters plus a tabletop display. The Peanuts® gang ornaments showcase each character dressed in Halloween costumes suited to their unique personalities – Linus as a superhero, Sally as a princess, Lucy as a witch, Pigpen as a pirate, Charlie Brown as a football player, and Snoopy as a jack-o-lantern with Woodstock on his head. The ornaments may be hung from the Halloween Ornament Tree, also available in Hallmark Gold Crown stores. The Peanuts® tabletop display captures the Halloween party scene from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
• Spooky voices in the Spooky Greetings Treat Chest invite guests to take a treat. Two eyes on the outside of the chest appear to be watching the action.
• Hallmark Gold Crown stores also offer one-stop shopping for Halloween decorating needs with items such as unique candy presenters, room decorations, gift and treat bags, paper supplies, and stickers.

Holiday History

Halloween is a secular celebration based on ancient Druid customs, dating back to 700 B.C. The Druids, a Celtic religious order in ancient Britain, Ireland and France, believed that the souls of the dead returned to mingle with the living on “hallowed eve.” People dressed in costumes to disguise themselves from these spirits.

Halloween first was celebrated in the United States in the 1840s, when Irish Catholics, fleeing from the potato famine, brought Halloween customs with them to America. The tradition of carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns originated with Irish children who carved out the centers of rutabagas, turnips and potatoes and placed candles inside.

The first Halloween cards in the U.S. were produced in 1908. Hallmark produced its first Halloween cards in the 1920s along with a limited line of Halloween party accessories, such as nut cups and bridge tallies. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hallmark began producing Halloween centerpieces, masks, children’s things, and paper partyware items.

In Stores

Available at Hallmark Gold Crown® stores nationwide and wherever Hallmark products are sold. Use the store locator on Hallmark.com to find the nearest Hallmark Gold Crown store.