Anybody pumped up for Halloween ?!?!

[Opera Ghost]

Have you posted any recent pictures?

I have not...wife has most of pictures on Facebook...so I need to get her to send some for me to post

[Hepcat]

Well if you're tolerant enough to let your wife post on Facebook, she has no grounds whatsoever to complain about you collecting monster items.

[Hepcat]

Six days to go!

[Hepcat]

Five days to go and counting!

[Unknown Primate]

NOW I'm getting fired up!  My 9 year old (nine and three fourths according to her) granddaughter is spending this weekend with us.  I have prepared homemade paper masks of The Witch, The Werewolf, The Vampire, Frankenstein, A Skull and a Jack O'Lantern, but they ae faceless.  She has to glue on eyes, mouths, fangs, eye sockets, hair, etc.  They're not technically masks, just heads.  This is a Saturday project so we're gonna do some more Halloweenish stuff Saturday night!  She and Grandma are camping on the floor in The Monster Room tonight and I get the bed to myself!  YAY!  Plus, I don't have to make my own coffee in the morning - when Autumn's here, it's her "job".

[Barlow]

I've gotten pretty bummed out about Halloween in recent years. When I count costumes at stores or in store fliers, at least 80% of the costumes are stupid things like French maids, politicians, rap artists, and sports figures. It's offensive to say the least. I can't hand out candy this year. If I see someone dressed up as Obama or Lady Gaga, I swear, I don't think I'd be able to control the urge to vomit in their trick-or-treat bag. I'm that fed up by how this holiday has been ruined, as have all holidays.

Christmas is just a big spending spree of materialism, where idiots trample each other at Best Buy at 3AM the day after Thanksgiving, a day supposedly dedicated to being thankful for what we have.

Few if any persons I ask understand that Veteran's Day and Memorial Day are OBSERVED rather than CELEBRATED, and fewer still can tell me the difference between the two holidays. No, it's just another excuse for a barbecue, just like Independence Day. Ooops...I mean "Fourth of July" for those ignorant of history. You'd be surprised at how many people I know who cannot answer the question "When do we celebrate Independence Day?". And there's the obligatory barbecue for Labor Day as well, and President's Day and every other "genericized" holiday (yeah, I invented that word).

Halloween has been totally emasculated. Everything has to be funny and goofy and smiley. It sickens me. Everything "horror" has to be turned into a humorous joke. Are people afraid of being afraid or something? I've had arguments with friends and acquaintances about this, about keeping the holiday(s) "pure" for lack of a better word. Some of these arguments have gotten so heated as to come near physical violence. People don't seem to understand that when we water every holiday down to the point where all they become are interchangeable excuses for parties and barbecues, they become meaningless and we lose an important part of our culture. Or rather, we substitute a rich and interesting heritage of varied holidays with a vapid, groundless, irrelevant and meaningless list of dates on which we do the same ridiculous things over and over again. Do we need 3 or 4 holidays to have a barbecue and drink beer? Do we need a holiday to play dress-up or go on a shopping spree? Really?

I find fewer and fewer reasons to go Halloween shopping each year. It's the same lame, pathetic decorations - mainly the cutesy/humorous kind - year after year no matter which stores I go to. There is little to no creativity to be seen, just another year of the same boring decorations that I wouldn't put up if they were given to me for free. Finding something truly worthy of Halloween these days is a rare event. Most of the crappy "Halloween" specialty stores near me have more French maid, sexually oriented, and political costumes than monster costumes, and most of the "monster" material consists of aborted baby decorations. Seriously, I am not kidding. One store last year had almost 1/3rd of the store dedicated to these idiotic dead baby decorations. What is this, Halloween Day or Abortion Day?

I don't participate anymore. I don't support those stores. I don't give out candy to non-horror costumed kids. You come to my door with an Obama costume or a Lady Gaga costume or wearing your grade school soccer outfit, you get nothing. Come as Frankenstein or a ghost or whatever, and you get a fistful of candy. I'm taking back Halloween if I have to train children like Pavlov's dog, I swear to god! Bah, humbug! I'm the Scrooge of Halloween.

[Halloween Jeff]

Unfortunately, I think, Barlow has a point.....the roots of Halloween, which stretch back to the time of the Celts and Druids, where October marked the end of summer and the growing season, have been forgotten.  A time when, according to the Druids, the boundary between the land of the living and that of the dead, could be crossed....Halloween has become, in a sense, almost politically correct....and, I'm not interested in starting a war here, but Halloween has been hijacked by populations of Gays/Lesbians in larger cities, such as New York and San Francisco....I don't want to come off sounding as if I'm biased against this population, for I truly am not, and can understand the reasoning WHY gays and lesbians celebrate this holiday with costumes, etc.....

I hate waiting all year for Halloween, and seeing all the "cutesy" decorations that abound in local stores....smiling ghosts and skeletons, toothy vampires, friendly mummies, and all the rest.

The Halloween of my boyhood in upstate NY is long gone - I remember going out at dusk with my friends, roaming the streets, full of life - noisy, exuberant...children running from house to house...porch lights on, the smell of autumn leaves.  All gone....

[Hepcat]

The Halloween of my boyhood in upstate NY is long gone - I remember going out at dusk with my friends, roaming the streets, full of life - noisy, exuberant...children running from house to house...porch lights on, the smell of autumn leaves.  All gone....

Unfortunately though today's parents hyperventilate at the thought of their kids running freely and noisily from house to house. The kids are all carefully chaperoned thus taming the holiday.



In any event, four days to go and counting!

[marsattacks666]

I'm having October/Hallowe'en fun in California.

[Hepcat]

Three days and counting!

[Fester]

Barlow and Bizarro Jeff:  I kinda feel sorry for you.  Of course, the Halloween of your youth is gone. 
As a wise man once said: "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!"

It is the nature of the world. Things change.  A century or so ago Halloween was all about vandalism mayhem and blackmail.  What did "Trick Or Treat" mean?  "Give us stuff and we won't wreck your yard."
Even further back, it was a Catholic Holy Day of Obligation.

Halloween is what you make of it. There are still plenty of stores that sell creepy and scary decorations & costumes.  Not everything sold is "PC" or Cute.  Even the big box stores carry Halloween stuff that is not "cutsey."  At least Target, Shopko, Walmart and Kmart here in Spokanistan do.

You want to be crabby and grouchy? 
That is up to you.
But instead of bitchin' moanin' about how the whole world is not what it used to be, you could be out there doing your best to keep Halloween as creepy/scary/fun as you want.


Halloween in: 2 days, 2 hours, 25 minutes and 8 seconds

But who's counting???

[neonnoodle]

Every Halloween, I like to do Halloween events, and I also like to put on a show of some kind.  The show can be larger or smaller, but I try to get out there and do it, and reinforce the nature of the holiday and some of its beloved images.  I know culture has disintegrated in some ways and become boring and uninspired.  That's why I always get out there and do whatever I can to bring more life to the holiday.  I promote it, hand out trinkets and toys all month, and put on the biggest show within budget.  It is lots of fun to do, and other holiday enthusiasts tend to join in.  I say to everyone, enjoy yourselves this fine holiday season, to whatever degree you are able!

[Hepcat]

Halloween is what you make of it. There are still plenty of stores that sell creepy and scary decorations & costumes.  Not everything sold is "PC" or Cute.  Even the big box stores carry Halloween stuff that is not "cutsey."  At least Target, Shopko, Walmart and Kmart here in Spokanistan do.

In truth, I don't mind cutesy decorations either. I like a wide range of Halloween stuff from vintage to present day Beistle, and from kids' Ben Cooper and Collegeville masks and costunes to the Don Post masks. What I don't like though is over the top gory. For example, I'd just as soon not see decorations and masks such as the one on this page:

http://www.universalmonsterarmy.com/forum/index.php?topic=205.3795

I like creepy and scary, but something like that mask is just too much. I also don't like modern slasher movies for the same reason even though I'm a huge fan of the Hammer Horror flicks from the fifties to the seventies. It's a matter of degree. The pendulum can swing far too far in either direction.

You want to be crabby and grouchy? 

That is up to you. But instead of bitchin' moanin' about how the whole world is not what it used to be, you could be out there doing your best to keep Halloween as creepy/scary/fun as you want.

While I never fail to decry the absence of kids roaming widely and freely to trick or treat as they did when I was a kid, I still appreciate Halloween for what it is today. In fact, in some ways it has improved. For example, the treats given out these days have improved tremendously. All I used to get from many homes was a piddly sucker or Halloween kiss. If I scored over five little chocolate bars or bags of chips on Halloween it was a triumph! Now many/most people give out little treat bags each of which may contain a little chocolate bar plus a whole bunch of other stuff! And there are townhouses now in well to do neighbourhoods! Talk about maximizing your haul! Wow! If I were still a kid, I'd be dumping off one pillowcase at home to get a fresh one!

Moreover, lawn decorations just weren't seen in London back when I was trick or treating in the late fifties/early sixties. People turning their front yards into graveyards and horror fantasies is a more recent phenomenon. And some people do an absolutely marvelous job!

[charp13]

I'll try to post some pictures of our small scale yard haunt this year. We are usually so busy getting everything set up, that I forget to take pics! We started decorating our yard about 25 years ago, when our kids were little. Now we are doing it for every kid that passes by    You can see our house from the main road, and when we hit the power switch on Halloween night....the power dims in the surrounding houses! (just kidding). We really stepped it up since our grandson was born. But we still do not spend very much $$ on props. They are things we've had for a while, that we keep repainting- or things that family members have given us. I have received birthday presents in July, that someone in my famiy bought after Halloween of the previous year! I love it! We try to change up the main props, but we are not organized or creative enough to have a new thrme each year.
I guess it's always been my favorite holiday to share. I truly enjoy talking to kids/adults that I never would have met- had it not been for our Halloween yard. It's also cool because we have always lived in neighborhoods with people from many different countries, and they love the holiday as well! There is no presssure because Halloween belongs to everyone- no matter what your beliefs are.
We also have a party every year for friends/family/anyone who wants to hang out. My grandson comes up with all the names for the games we play, and he is the official host. I provide the food, prizes, props, candy, etc. And he and his little pals/and their parents hang out and enjoy. When we were cleaning up Saturday night, I noticed that my masks in my monster room (they are not expensive- just sentimental) had been removed from the stands and it looked like they had been "tried on". I thought to myself.....where else can a group of kids ages 7, 8, 4, and 5- get to explore a monster room in someone's house- without aduts (we were all downstairs) and try on monster masks? I felt so proud that these kids had an opportunity to have unsupervised Halloween FUN!

[Flower]

I'm trying to get this pumpkin problem sorted out ....












A nice neighbor came over to help ..



Better ...