It's beginning to look a lot like Halloween: sales of spooky countdown calendars soar

It is the stuff of nightmares if you find Christmas too commercial: the Halloween advent calendar is here.

- Zoe Wood

In this version of advent the countdown spans 13 (unlucky for some) to 31 “nights of fright” and is meted out in everything from horror dolls to KPop Demon Hunter keyrings. There is even one with The Nightmare Before Christmas as its theme. The calendars are a fresh twist as enthusiasm for Halloween fancy dress parties and trick or treating grows. Britons typically spend nearly £400m on sweets to satisfy the zombies and ghosts at their front door, according to the data firm Circana.