Pumpkins Scream in the Dead of Night

This is Halloween, everybody make a scene....

October 31st. One of my favorite days of the year. I love Halloween for so many reasons. As a kid it was the candy and costumes. As I grew older it was the candy, costumes, and spookiness of it all. Today it's all that, a viewing of 'The Shining' and 'Shadow of a Vampire' along with some seriously silly singing of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. Stay clear of my house. I'm a horrible singer. I've had some good Halloweens full of pumpkin carving, the looting of four neighborhoods in one night, being out in the rain (OK not such a good one) and being a victim of the Bates Motel. Here are some Halloween memories I'm sharing because days like this make me feel all warm, fuzzy and well sharing-like so suck it up because it won't be back until maybe Thanksgiving.

COSTUMES PAST

1. A witch multiple times (never a sexy one)
2. A pink princess (I was 10 so leave me alone I was still playing with My Little Ponies)
3. Dracula's bride
4. A Dead Bride
5. A Dead Ballerina
6. A victim from the Bates Motel complete in hotel pajamas ripped to shreds with lots of blood. I spent hours on that costumes spraying it with fake blood on the side lawn of my parents house.
7. A Dead Flapper
8. A biker chick (I was in college. I owned a skull bandanna and a leather jacket it was easy.)
9. A 70's disco dancer (again, college and I was a pledge and it was dictated to me that this is what I would be. Not that I minded as I do love me a good disco.)



I know there's more because I tricked and treated until I graduated from high school (I was short!) but you get the idea. As a kid I liked the macabre. I enjoyed Edward Gorey and had a cute little Gorey coffin on my desk with bird bones inside. Sometimes chewing gum soemtimes bones. I read Poe and painted an urn full of Wolf bane on my closet wall. I had a thing for Vampires. When I was six I tried to wear my glow in the dark fangs to school but my parents nixed the idea. They let me wear them to bed though and I thoroughly enjoyed knowing that while I slept, arms crossed Mummy-style in my bed, my fangs glowed on in the night. I wanted to be Darth Vader and not Princess Leia. I would breathe into my glass at the dinner table hoping to be mistaken for the him. Some might say I was a bit darker than your average kid but my parents didn't let on. They let me hang out in graveyards to my hearts content and I thank them for that. Free to be you and me I suppose.



This year I'll just be handing out candy. I'll listen to my old soundtrack to the Nightmare Before Christmas and maybe Dracula too. I'll indulge in a little of 'The Shining' if I have my way and take my daughter out sporting her Darth Vader costume hoping to carry on a little bit of tradition. She's a sunny little soul but she did squeal out with glee when I took the costume out of its package which made me dare to dream that she might have a little bit the of the dark side in her yet.