Halloween Traditions

Excuse me, but does Linus live here?

When I was little I loved Halloween.  I liked to use my creativity to dress up however I wanted.  I loved going to different neighbors houses and seeing their carved pumpkins and various decorations.  I also loved getting the candy, that I liked so much, I would save it in my drawer for "a special day."  Often, most of the candy would still be there by the next year.

These days, I like to see what little kids come up with for costumes.  I still like seeing pumpkins carved into Jack-O'-Lanterns, and other decorations.  As an adult, I if I allow myself to buy candy, it is very possible it will be gone by the end of the month, if not sooner.

One of my first years as a young trick-or-treater, I remember dressing up as a princess.  Walking around with my mother I saw this one door that had a skeleton on it, that opened his mouth, and maybe moved his eyes. It was extremely scary to me. I did not want to go to the door, but at the same time, it intrigued me, and I wanted to knock on the door.   Actually, I think I wanted my mom to go knock on the door for me. She made me come with her. The lady who answered was super-nice. The skeleton still scared me, despite the fact my mom and the lady tried to convince me that it wasn't. I am not even sure I took candy from that place, but going up to that house, and meeting the nice lady with the scary decoration, remains a fond memory of mine.

Now that I am an adult, one thing I find fun to do on Halloween is to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."  So when I got a little off course driving around one day, I was thrilled to see a house (pictured above) with a pumpkin patch right in front of it!  At first, I thought someone just bought a bunch of pumpkins and put them all over their yard, to decorate for Halloween.  Then, after I stopped my car, I was in awe.  I had to take a photo!  It was just too awesome a place to pass up.  I was almost expecting to see Linus and Snoopy wandering around in that pumpkin patch.  Later I thought to myself, how cool it would be if all those pumpkins in their front yard were carved into Jack-O'-Lanterns for Halloween.  I wonder if the owners do that?  I will never know.  I have no idea how to get there again.  Still, it was an amazing sight to see.

Another good Halloween movie is one I just saw for the first time yesterday.  A few weeks ago, a friend of mine invited me to see the movie "Frankenweenie."  I had seen previews, and thought it looked cute, so I decided I would go.  It made me hungry for frank and beans for some reason.... so I made "Frank and Beanies" for lunch that day.

Above:  cooked hot dog in a bun, with ketchup, mustard, and onion.  Van De Kamp's Pork and Beans on the side (photo in black in white, food is not the actual color it appears to be in this photo).

At the movie theater, they passed out these really cool cards, that promoted the movie even more.

I really enjoyed the movie.  At first, I was not absolutely sure how much I was going to like it, even though I have liked some Tim Burton movies in the past, most of his movies can be kind of out-there.  This one was so funny, it had a little suspense, and had some near tear jerker moments.  I think as a little kid, some things might have scared me, but so did some things in the Disney movies back in my day.  It is probably my favorite of the Tim Burton movies, and having it in stop-motion and 3D made it even more awesome.  A few people even clapped after the movie was over.  I may have to, if more people had clapped.  I really thought it was that good.

Halloween is a great memory from my childhood.  Lately, I have seen some things that remind me of those days.  There is this one place I often drive by that has paper pumpkins placed on every business door or window.  It is so fun to see the various faces that each kid has drawn on their pumpkin.  Here is one of the many below.

I like this ghost decoration (below) as well.  Though, it kind of reminds me of Slender...don't you think?  Bwha-ha-ha!  Hope you all have a Happy Halloween!