When to Buy This Home Depot Halloween Cult-Favorite Gem Before It Sells Out

When it comes to Halloween, there are two general camps of people: those who have been putting together their spooky vision board since June, and those who frantically Google “easy last minute Halloween costume ideas” on Oct. 30. While both stances are perfectly valid, if you fall into the procrasti-decorating camp, you’re guaranteed to miss out on some of Halloween’s hottest decor. Specifically: The Home Depot’s coveted 12-foot skeleton, affectionately known as Skelly, which sells out like clockwork every year. 

So, how do you make sure you’re able to score a Home Depot Skelly this year, along with their other lawn decor that will instantly give you instant Halloween house cred among trick-or-treaters? I went straight to the source and asked The Home Depot’s decorative holiday merchant, Aubrey Horowitz. 

Go ahead and jot this date down in your planner: August 4. “We will release our entire collection online on that date,” Horowitz says. Think: The classic 12-foot skeleton, but also new creations like a 3.5-foot-tall Scarred Chucky (a scarier version of last year’s classic creepy doll) and an enhanced Ultra Skelly, which can move, blink, light up, and even speak (via voice recordings or a “live mode” that lets you talk through Skelly in real time).

Luckily, though you can’t shop until that date, you can start mapping out your lawn decor now, thanks to a new site feature where you can preview some of the collection before it’s on sale. “It’ll really help take some of the stress away from the launch,” Horowitz says. “People get so excited and in previous years we’ve sold out within two hours, so this will be a great opportunity for customers to really be able to build their shopping list and be ready for August 4.”

Beyond that early August date, Horowitz says the key to staying on top of any and all Home Depot Halloween news is to consistently check social media. “I would tell customers to check our social media pages and to check our website because we’re going to be providing all the latest and greatest details of when they should shop,” she says. 

Though you may have to wait a few more days to order your larger-than-life decor, now is the perfect time to get ahead of the crowd and order the Husky Pro Grip Storage Tote, which is just the right size to put Skelly to rest at the end of the Halloween season — until it’s time to rise again.