Happy Halloween!
Posted on: October 31, 2012
Geeky Halloween fun!
geeky pumpkin carving FOR THE WIN!
Some just plain weird Halloween costumes. also, Carl Sagan, which is awesome!
BoingBoing’s open thread for DIY Halloween fun. There are some f’ing brilliant photos in the comments.
What will I be doing at 8pm Wednesday night? watching Charlie Brown, of course!
The Pinterest Halloween feed. You’re welcome.
whatcha gonna do with that pumpkin? Roast the seeds and make pie of course! the best pumpkin pie recipe I’ve found, so far.
When you get back from that Pinterest feed, I’ve a cheesy but true Halloween story for you.
In the neighborhood I grew up in, everyone went crazy for Halloween. Giant fabricated spiders dangling from windows, creepy music and lights hooked up to a motion sensor (a.k.a. someone hiding in the dark waiting to hit play on a tape recorder), fake (or not!) scarecrows sitting on rocking chairs on the porch, paper mache ghosts everywhere, fake tombstones in front yards, the 80s was a wonderful time to go trick or treating. Back then we waiting till it was good and dark to go trick or treating. None of this 6:30pm stuff, we were hardcore, we waited until 7:30pm, sometimes even as late as 8pm!
I must have been around 7 years old. Young enough that my Mom took me trick or treating, but old enough that she’d stay on the driveway and let me go up to the front door all by myself. For some unknown reason, it was just me and my Mom, no friends, no sister, not sure what was going on, but it was just the two of us. The way the neighborhood was set up, most houses had a large front yard and a smaller backyard, so you had to walk a pretty far way (for a 7 year old, at least) to get to their door.
This particular house had a very big front yard, and on this particular Halloween it sported a half dozen fake tombstones. many of them had bodies lying around them. Manikins? Clothing stuffed with rags and leaves? sleeping zombies? I was petrified, and refused to walk any further. My mother, a little embarrassed at my little girl antics, pushed me along. we walked past the first tombstone, and the first body. I was 6 steps closer to a king sized candy bar. and I was 7 years old. A Big Girl, and Big Girls in all their Pirate Princess glory aren’t afraid of Halloween. My Mom was friends with the family who lived there, I’m sure she was looking forward to saying hello and maybe sharing some gossip with whoever opened the door. All I knew about the house was “teenagers live there”.
I knew my mother jumped because she was holding my hand. She shouted, startled, “someone just grabbed my foot!” the zombies had awoken. They were coming up from the grave, I could see limbs moving, heads rising. I was halfway between the front door and the street with no where to run. I screamed, and started to cry. It was supposed to be safe. Mom had promised me it was safe. And I was a big girl. Were zombies going to eat me alive? I was too busy screaming and crying to wonder if I could buy them off with MilkDuds or Smarties.
I was told afterwards that the teenage boys dressed as zombies-in-wait felt awful about making me cry. They truly thought my Mom knew exactly what was going on, and that it was a bunch of teenagers lying in the yard trying to startle friends and neighbors in good fun. I was fine an hour later, I think those poor kids felt guilty for months!
Lesson learned? Have fun with Halloween. dangle spiders out windows, startle the older kids, set creepy music on a motion detector, have goofy glow in the dark skeletons in your front yard, if you’re giving out candy answer the door with a zombie dub-step lurch. But beware the little ones. they startle easy.
4 Responses to "Happy Halloween!"
October 31, 2012 at 12:31 pm
You say “we waiting till it was good and dark to go trick or treating. None of this 6:30pm stuff”. Hey, here in Portland, OR it IS full dark at 6:30 this time of year. It gets dark about 5:45 or so, and with cloud cover (what full moon?) it gets dark.
We don’t get many (about 4 or 5) kids here, a steep hill with only a few houses, 2 of which have kids. So we have the light on and hand out candy for a couple of hours and then try not to eat much of the leftovers until my wife Barbara takes it to her hair salon place to get rid of it. That will happen tomorrow morning.
Have a great Halloween, Red!
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October 31, 2012 at 2:51 pm
Ha, ha! I used to always decorate the house up and have a party. But the best thing was my ‘box’ invention. Which was basically a plain cardboard box with a hole big enough for a hand to go in cut into the front. Then cover it with black webbing until it looks like a furry animal and also cover the hole. Then you have to get children to put their hand in to see what’s inside the box – and this is the best bit! You put a hole in the opposite side which you put your hand in so that you can grab the hand of the child and give them a scare. It sounds pretty horrible but everyone loved that box – it was practically a legend! It’s still in the loft and is probably covered with real spiderwebs now!
Lynn 😀
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November 1, 2012 at 8:13 am
My childhood is full of wonderful Halloween memories. Trick-or-treating bringing home bags of candy and lots of fun costumes and parties with friends. It is sad that more kids don’t go out into neighborhoods now days. I know it happens some places, but isn’t an across the board thing like it seemed to be when I was a kid.
Roasting pumpkin seeds is awesome. We didn’t do it this year and I was regretting that last night as I was hungry for them!
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the Little Red Reviewer 
October 31, 2012 at 9:21 am
I lived near Knotts Berry Farm when I was a kid and every October they turned the entire park into Knotts Scary Farm. Oh boy do I miss those days. On some rides, scary dudes would climb into your car. It scared the heck out of me, but was so much fun. Happy Halloween.
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