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By Lonnie Cruse
Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. Is it because Halloween is a week after my birthday? Because I often got a cake shaped like a pumpkin when I was a little girl? Maybe. But the candy counts for a lot too, with me. And by the way, have you tried mixing salted peanuts with Candy Corn to treat yourself??? YUMMMMMM! Um, where was I?
Oh, yeah, Halloween. I love the decorations, I love the trick-or-treaters, I love the pumpkins, all shapes and sizes, I love watching the old scary movies like Dracula with Bella Lugosi, I love the fall smells, but most of all I love it because it IS fall and the trees are soooo beautiful. This year we got more rain than usual and the colors are fantastic. Such beauty before the browns and blacks of winter arrive (unless we get snow, of course.)
One of my favorite Halloween memories is catching our dog, Old Jimbo, sticking his head into one of our boy's trick-or-treat bags, searching for his favorite treat. I got him out of the bag before he ate something that would make him sick. Yup, Halloween is special.
This year I'm reading Halloween mysteries and Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party is my favorite. Halloween is a perfect time for murder, isn't it? Well, fictionally speaking, of course.
What's your favorite part of Halloween.? Would you like to share your favorite Halloween memory? Thanks for stopping by.
Now, pass me a treat or I'll have to trick you. Really.
12 comments:
I like Halloween as well. I loved trick or treating as a kid and also with me kids when they were small.
When I was a kid, that was the one night we could run around town after dark with our friends until 9 o'clock! By the time I had kids old enough to go out we lived in the city and times had changed so one of us went with them. until junior high.
One thing that is maybe unique to St.Louis is the kids come to your door ready with a joke to tell you. So it goes something like this:
Kids come up to the door and yell trick or treat.
We say, what's your trick?
They tell their jokes-sometimes pretty funny, often not.
We dish out the goodies.
Caryn
I was a shy kid, so I can't remember but probably found trick or treating as agonizing as selling Girl Scout cookies, which I do remember as traumatic. I also remember trick or treating with my son in Manhattan, where you do have to supervise kids. One memorable moment: he accepted an apple from a stranger while my back was turned, and when I freaked out, he said cheerfully, "Don't worry, Ma, the lady was nice, so it probably doesn't have any razor blades in it."
Halloween was always fun not so much for all the free candy that people gave you (once you mustered up the nerve to ask them), but because you were out at night, and your normal day-time universe had been transformed and was filled by strange (but not scary) creatures roaming around. I spun it out as long as I could--I think the last time I went "trick-or-treating" I was 16, and I wasn't even collecting candy.
For over a decade we lived in a small community that was the perfect setting for Halloween. It was level, with well-maintained sidewalks, but more important, it was a safe place--parents looked out for everybody's children. We moved from there six years ago, and I still don't know a lot of people in town--but last year we had 85 kids (little ones, not roaming teens) stop by.
I hope that never changes--that kids don't lose the excitement of the night.
I love the joke idea, Caryn. It is sad how the safety issue has changed over the decades. Thanks for stopping by everyone!
I always loved Halloween and still do. When I was a kid I always wanted to be a gypsy (there is much gypsy lore in my family, since I am half Hungarian) because my mom would let me wear her giant hoop earrings and would darken my eyebrows with her eyebrow pencil. Since my sister and I weren't ever encouraged to wear make-up, even as teens, this was a real treat. :)
Now I just enjoy watching my sons get all excited about the holiday. I mostly enjoy the leaves and the weather, and the friendliness of neighbors on this day. Last year a man two blocks down gave out tiny cups of Bailey's Irish cream. You should have seen us moms lining up--just because it was cold out, though. :)
Hallopalooza:
Scary books I don't read so much though I seem to remember ... was it Stephen King or Edgar Allan Poe ... when I was in high school and just freaking myself out at night. :)
PK the Bookeemonster
peakae@aol.com
The Telltale Heart had me at age 8!
edithmax at gmail
(Is this the place for the Scavenger Hunt comment? If not, please transfer. Thanks!)
My friends and I would listen to Edgar Allen Poe's recordings (on vinyl, of course) in the dark until we were scared silly!!
jbh307 at bellsouth dot net
Edgar Allen Poe wrote my favorite scary stories.
I liked handing out treats more than getting them.
Thanks for the clue.
Helen Kiker hdkiker@comcast.net
In keeping with the Halloween season, I’d have to say the scariest book to me is The Devil Came To St. Louis by Troy Taylor.
One Halloween night while trick-or-treating with my big sister, an older man came to the door with a large bowl in his hand. He asked if I wanted a treat. Being in first grade and candy crazed, told him yes. He put on rubber kitchen gloves and told me to hold out my hand. Dummy me did, and the mean old man dropped scalding hot penneys in my frail palm before my sister could stop him. He was reported to the police, but that didn't keep my palm from burning. Years after, I feared going out with other kids, but when I did go, I only opened my sack and never again my hand! I am having one Hallopalooza time hunting clues! Thanks for your participation.
thorntonks@yahoo.com
My favorite scary book is "Ammie, Come Home"
boots9k at wowway.com
A scary memory of me, with my younger sister at the "Y" in Hyde Park in Chicago. My mother dropped us off to see "The Tell-Tale Heart," on Halloween. A heart (facsimile) was on a wall, beating very loudly and moving. It scared the stuffing out of me and my sister and we walked home, clutching each other. I still remember the terror of it all. And I'll never read that story or anything by Poe.
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