Wednesday, October 31, 2007

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.

4 comments:

  1. Just thought I'd share my favorite Halloween costume. I'm not into the princess thing either. And I think you are going to be one of the few people who would appriciate the creativeness of it all. I was pregnant with my 3rd and she was born mid November that year(so I was HUGE). I used one of my husbands old white T-shirts, and glued 2 life sized baby doll parts(one arm and one leg)into holes in the shirt on the belly with some fake blood. So it looked like she was busting out of my belly. I thought it was creative. But I passed out candy that year and some of the moms were pretty disturbed. Sure wish I had some pictures!!

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  2. Anonymous1:36 PM

    'The Nightmare Before Christmas', Edward Gorey, Poe AND you hung out in graveyards??? Omg -- I think we must have been separated at birth! :-D

    (Say it once, say it twice
    Take a chance and roll the dice
    Ride with the moon in the dead of night)

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  3. But I seem to remember you being afraid to go into my parents' house after some ghost stories...

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  4. Yup. I am a wimp about some horror/gore stuff and totally afraid of the dark. So some ghost stories really freak me out. I love to scare myself but then regret it....

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