How Many Days Until Halloween? 12 Days Left on Oct. 19

One full weekend remains before Halloween. Twelve days separate today from Saturday, October 31, which leaves nine weekdays and three weekend days, and just one Saturday before the holiday.

That single weekend is the one every pumpkin patch, corn maze and haunted house has been counting on, which is why it is also the busiest and most expensive weekend of the season.

Pick now, carve later

Buying and carving are separate jobs, and separating them is the best way to have a pumpkin that still looks good on the thirty-first. Picking this week means a pumpkin that has not spent five days in weather and has not been handled by hundreds of visitors. Carving on October 24 or 25 means a carved surface exposed to air for less than a week, which is roughly the limit before it starts to soften.

Farm stands run out of large pumpkins before small ones. A household that wants one big carving pumpkin should go early in the day rather than late, and should not count on finding one on October 30.

Attractions, and the daylight question

Haunted houses, hayrides and mazes do most of their business in the final two weekends, and Saturday evenings are the heaviest of the year. Buying tickets online avoids the longest queue, and going early in the evening avoids the crowd inside. Weeknights in the final week are much quieter and often cheaper.

Farm stands and patches cut their hours in the final week, and some close after the last weekend in October. A household that wants to make an afternoon of it should go this weekend rather than waiting, because the outing is part of what people are buying.

The same applies to photographs in the patch. Late October light is low and warm through most of the afternoon, which is why pictures taken this weekend tend to look better than the ones taken under pressure the week after. Crowds are the tradeoff, and arriving before eleven in the morning is the reliable way to avoid them.

For families with younger children, the daylight version of every one of those attractions is effectively a different experience. A corn maze at three in the afternoon is a walk. The same maze at nine at night, with actors, is something else, and the age guidance operators publish is usually accurate rather than cautious. Let the child’s temperament make that decision rather than the calendar.