The economic state of today’s shopper is pretty scary right now, and everyone is watching spending pretty closely. So what’s the one thing Americans are willing to shell out for in this economy? Costumes, decorations, and entertainment designed to scare us even more.

According to the National Retail Federation, Americans plan to spend $6.9 billion this year for Halloween. To put that number into context, the same NRF survey found that Americans planned to spend $3.3 billion in 2005. This year isn’t an anomaly, either. Halloween spending did decline in 2009, when it dropped by about $1 billion to $4.8 billion. But by last year, it had bounced back to $5.8 billion.

The biggest chunk of this money — $2.5 billion of it — will go to costumes. Of that total, a little more than $300 million will be spent on costumes for pets.  Shoppers will also drop $2 billion on candy and just under that on decorations.

By contrast, the much larger holiday season spending category isn’t growing as quickly. Early projections put spending at $447 billion in celebrating Christmas and other end-of-year holidays last year, but that figure was a measly 2.3 percentage points higher than what we spent in 2009. Calamitous political and economic events generally put a crimp in the consumers festive spirit.

So what makes Halloween the exception?  The answer, most likely, is that today’s economically battered shopper needs an outlet for escape — a pattern that has proven true over various periods of economic difficultly.