It is that time of the year where my ringtone gets changed to Dead Man’s Party by Oingo Boing. The Hocus Pocus dvd gets put on while I dig out my Buffy Halloween episodes to watch immediately after. Throw in various horror movies and my month is set. My personal traditions have changed over the years, trading in the lighter, cuter fair for a something a bit more twisted. This is a little sampling of the growth of my traditions throughout the years for one of my favorite holidays. Whether it be enjoying favorite movies, dressing up, or carving pumpkins, this season has always offered fun and great memories for me.

I was fortunate enough to have a mother who made my costumes growing up. I may not have always been appreciative of this when I was younger, begging for one of those horrible plastic trash bags with a mask that not only blinded you for the night but greatly limited your oxygen intake. A girl just wanted to be She-Ra, I guess. She’s made me many things over the years. As I said in my last post I went as Batman when I was five. It started because I had a black Batman t-shirt with just the emblem on it that I loved. My mom went out and bought a basic black mask and some black material and fashioned a Batman mask with a flowing cape connected in the back. It was pretty sweet, but that was how awesome my mom was. One of my favorite costumes she ever made was Pippi Longstocking. She even made the wig. Unfortunately, due to a hit of sickness, I didn’t get to go out that year, but wore it at home snuggled on the couch watching the Halloween specials on television as I recuperated. If I ever have kids someday, I hope I can do as much for them, but I think I may need to go a couple more rounds with a sewing machine first, because the last time we had a challenge the machine won. It’s definitely a goal to learn to sew better. I can mend, but I’ve never taken on the challenge of a full project before.

Trick or treating was an interesting affair growing up, as well. Living next to cornfields, there wasn’t necessarily a lot of traffic coming your way or anywhere for you to really go. That meant we had to make the trek into town, which not only meant legit trick or treating but a parade.  I eagerly joined in the menagerie of monsters and fairy princesses as we proudly marched our bedazzled and ghoulish visages down the street for all of my small hometown to see. When we came to the end, we were released upon the houses to gather our bounty of sugary confectionaries and numerous cheap plastic toys that we didn’t mind getting year after year. This was happiness as a child. Eventually we got too old to trick or treat which meant I hardly saw any, because no one came out to our house, not that I blame them for not wanting to travel to the middle of nowhere

During high school, I would dress up on Halloween for the school festivities. One year, I went as Buffy. Shocking, I am aware. I remember working hard on making a stake from real wood to go with my outfit, also ensuring the end remained blunt to not cause injury. I am a nerd, so there is always a level of perfection taken when entering such endeavors. However, being the good little girl that I was, I immediately marched down to the high school administration office to check on whether my newly made stake would be considered appropriate enough to keep with me while on school grounds. Yeeeeah, it got confiscated as a potential risk. I was patted on the head for using good enough judgment to ask, then sent off to first period. I was pretty bummed, but I got it. Unfortunately, that kind of bummed me out for dressing up for a while. I would rarely do it after that until I graduated from college.

Since I wasn’t really into dressing up anymore when I hit college, my friends and I started a new tradition, and a silly one at that. Usually we would go to whatever preferred horror movie that was out in the theaters. The other thing that we did was look up some haunted place in the area and try to go find it. Unfortunately we never found any of the places that these road trips were intended for, but the drives were usually a blast. I loved hanging out with my friends and catching up, and they loved hanging out with me and doing whatever they felt could possibly annoy or irritate me, like rolling open the side door of my car as we drove sixty miles an hour down the highway. It wasn’t exactly dangerous, because there was a special catch in the track that allowed the door to be opened while driving for extra ventilation. It probably wasn’t recommended when traveling at the speeds we were. Thankfully, we are all still alive, and I did not murder them in the process. We no longer go on our trips anymore, mostly because we are pretty spread out across the country. I personally don’t want to, because I think the potential for getting any citation from the local law enforcement concerning these activities isn’t exactly classy at our age. I do wish we found that haunted cheese factory, though. It’s the one that got away.

Now, I mostly just watch movies and enjoy the youngsters trick or treating coming to the door. I have a tier system when giving out candy. Everybody gets something, but if they come as one of my favorite characters or in something extremely awesome, extra candy will be given. Extra is always given out to those dressed as Sleeping Beauty, Stitch, Star Wars characters, Thor, and various others of my favorite marvel characters. I am still waiting for some precious child with extraordinary parents to come to my door dressed as either She-Ra or Jem. I will just hand them the bowl and call it a night.

I am sure that there are other people out there that enjoy the holiday as much I do. I would love to read about some of your traditions whether it be decorating, baking, or anything else fun like that. This is a safe place to divulge what you love, so feel free. Thanks for reading!