There are a lot of things we grow out of as we get older, but there is one thing adults are never too old for: Halloween.

A recent National Retail Federation study revealed that “18- to 24-year-old consumers were the most likely to celebrate Halloween, with nearly nine in 10 planning to do so this year.”

A majority of Halloween themed events are marketed toward adults, such as Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights and Six Flags’ Fright Fest. These events are not closed to children, but the parks’ websites discourage people under the age of 13 from attending.

I dress up every year, I go out to haunted houses and sometimes I even carve pumpkins.

According to Statista, 11.7 million adults said they were planning to dress up on Halloween this year.

Another study on Statista showed that in 2017, the U.S. spent $1.68 million on adult costumes, while spending on children costumes only totaled $1.23 million.

Celebrating Halloween doesn’t necessarily mean trick-or-treating, it could just mean dressing up. This is an age where you can get really creative with your costume: do cool make-up, plan a group costume and really go all out.

The NRF study showed that dressing up is the number one most popular activity young adults choose to do on Halloween while the second is handing out candy.

Even our own campus encourages us to participate in Halloween.

Cia DeMartino, director for the Center for Teaching and Learning, posted on Blackboard a few weeks ago that our campus would be Hogwarts themed this year. She invited everyone to dress up as a Harry Potter character or wear their house colors: blue for Ravenclaw, red for Gryffindor, yellow for Hufflepuff and green for Slytherin.

“I hate the idea of someone wanting to participate and wanting to do it, but stopping themselves because they’re worried it’s too childish or they’re worried they’ll stand out or be the only one,” DeMartino said.

It’s clear to me that Halloween is a good excuse to dress up and eat candy. It’s innocent fun. Halloween is a night when adults can pretend they are still kids. It’s not about the scary stuff, Halloween is our excuse to not grow up.