A question: What are you doing if anything on Halloween?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I have three questions I’d like to ask folks.

**1. *****What plans do you have for Halloween? ***I’m moving…I’ll be out of my present home by the 30th. But I’ve scheduled the flight for my wife and I (and the cats which is going to cost me an arm and a leg, and maybe one of my nuts…) for the 3rd because a friend of ours is throwing a Halloween Party and my wife and this woman are close. she really wants to go to the party, and since I don’t have to be at my next assignment until the tenth, screw it, we can spend one last weekend here.

But since we’re moving all of our stuff will be gone. The party is a horror/sci-fi themed one, so I’m going to use my long loeather trench coat and either use bandages to go as the Invisible Man…(or maybe “Darkman”…I have a fedora I can use) or Blade, the Vampire Hunter. Thing is, If I don’t ship one of Samuria swords with our stuff, I’ll have to ask a friend to mail it to me later.

My wife hasn’t made up her mind yet…but she wants to find a cheap costume we cna throw away idf we can’t fit it into our baggage. Another friend and his wife are going as Emperor Palpatine and Padme. They say their costumes are awesome. I kind of want to see this. A buddy of mine is going as Captain Picard. He actually looks like a young Patrick Stewart so that should be pretty cool.

2. What if any decorations do you do for Halloween? I used to dress up as the Grim Reaper and out tombstones in my yard. Everyone thought i was just a statue or something so when people went to my door I’d follow them up while my wife handed them candy and scare the bejeezys out of them when they turned around.

The coolest Halloween set ups I’ve ever seen were in New Jersey a few years back. A guy that lived a block away had made a makeshift UFO spaceship thingie in his yard. It was really well done. His family dressed up as aliens and they invited kids in to get their candy. I was amazed at the work they must have put into it. Those kids are lucky to have parents that went that far to have fun on Halloween with them.

There was also the guy that dressed up as Jason…with a fake chainsaw that made noise. He roamed the neighborhood and jumped out scaring random Halloweeners. I guess it could be said to be mean, but it was damned funny too watching him chase people down the street.

But I wish I had a picture of the one house, right outside of Ft. Monmouth. This guy dressed his whole yard up as a victorian era graveyard with manicans and everything as gravediggers. (and a grave that he must have dug himself). It was really cool looking.

3. Why don’t kids dress up as monsters anymore? For every scary costume I see on Halloween there are five or six superheroes or fairies or something. I don’t really have a problem with it, its just that when I was a kid…(which was a looooong time ago) we always were Ghosts, werewolves, or vampires…once I went out as the Devil! You don’t really see that anymore.

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Going to a lecture on Poe!

3

The next day is my birthday, so my GF is kidnapping me and hiding me away at a little romantic B&B on Martha’s Vineyard. On Halloween night, we might go to a 70’s disco party. Not sure if anyone but the band will be in costume.

Then again, we might be too tired to go out.

4

I’m having orthopedic surgery on Halloween.

This is perhaps appropriate - I will be cut open by uniformed devils wielding hammers, chisels, drills…

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Getting together with two of my best friends from college, our first time in a dozen years, and heading to one’s Hill Country cabin so we can hunt, fish, smoke cigars, drink fine scotch and regale each other with stories beside the firepit. Okay, I’ll try and remember to throw a ghost story into the mix.

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My kindergarten-age daughter (referred to online as Lil’ Miss Sous-Chef) and I just joined the YMCA’s Adventure Princess program, and we’re going on a campout Halloween weekend. Fathers have been told that if they don’t wear a costume, they will be expected to get up in front of everyone and sing “I’m a Little Teapot”; my immediate reaction was “I should wear a teapot costume.”

In the end, though, I decided that since the best costumes for a big hulking galoot like me are the humiliating ones, I will be dressing as a ladybug.

My son, Chef Jr., is planning to hang out at his friend’s house and scare trick-or-treaters. Mrs. Chef says she’s going to take advantage of the unheard-of weekend alone to lock the door and watch Ghost Hunters all night.

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Probably sit at home playing either LOTRO or Rock Band. Though, hmm, I just had a thought. A rock & roll themed Halloween/Rock Band party would be cool.

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Putting on a costume and scaring children, same as every night.

Okay, actually going to a friend’s party with the wife.

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We usually have my parents and sister come over for dinner. I love handing out candy to the neighborhood kids and am already working on the treat bags. We have small toys here up the wazoo (I used to own a toy store) so I’ll be giving those out along with candy.

When it’s a nice night my mom, sister and I used to take the kids trick-or-treating. Two words; Jello shots! Many of the neighbors give them out to the adults to help keep us warm and happy. It works! Too bad my youngest is 13 now and past the age to go out and get candy. If he was shorter he might’ve been able to get away with it for another year, but he’s almost 5’7" now - just a little bit shorter then me. I guess it would look pretty odd to go out by ourselves just for the Jello shots. Anybody have a kid I can borrow? :slight_smile: C’mon! People give out great treats around here.

Yes, I’m rapidly approaching the time when both of my kids will be taller then me.:frowning:

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If I can swing it, hopefully taking off work and visting my brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and niece in Princeton. It’s my nephew’s birthday, and I want to take him and his sister trick-or-treating. They’re 8 and 5 years old respectively, and as you might imagine, will be cute as hell in whatever costumes they’ve picked out this year.

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  1. What plans do you have for Halloween?
    ON Halloween will dress the kids up , let them go trick or treating, and hand out candy. Will be going to a halloween party the weekend before with my gf, though.

  2. What if any decorations do you do for Halloween?
    We try to be the scary house… moving hands from the bushes, graveyards spiderwebs that have spiders fall fro mthem at the slightest touch, etc. We also will be setting up a laptop in the window and play continuous scary movies throughout the night.

    1. Why don’t kids dress up as monsters anymore?
      Mine do, they abhor the cutesyt outfits. My oldest was the Jackal from 13 Ghosts last year. Was pretty kick ass.
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I’ll dress up the nearly four year-old as a vampire (his choice) and take him around the neighbourhood, and the older boy will don his Mad Scientist costume and take off with his friends. I don’t take younger around too long, so the rest of the night my husband and I will sit on the porch and hand out candy. We like to see all of the costumes.

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I expect I’ll be at home, dipping into the candy bowl at regular intervals, secure in the knowledge that my neighborhood hasn’t seen a single trick-or-treater for the past several years.

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I’m turning all the lights out and going to the pub.

I’m always as enthusiastic - I consider it a warm-up for Christmas :wink:

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I’ll be hosting a Holloween party for about 20-30 people, including lots of small princesses, pirates, ghouls, and at least one spider.

The kids are making a haunted house in the garage with peeled grapes for eyeballs and lots of other creepy things.

Then we all go out trick-or-treating.

I can’t imagine a better Halloween!

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I was invited to a costume party, but I’m not big on dressing up, so I probably won’t go. I will likely spend the evening same as usual, at my friend’s house watching shlocky early 80s slasher films, and classic horror movies.

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I might dole out some candy, but if the weather remains warm and dry, I might not dress up.
Otherwise, I’ll just watch a DVD.

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**1. *****What plans do you have for Halloween? ***Early in the evening, taking the little one trick or treating with her best friend and his folks. I think the teenagers are finally considering themselves too old for this nonsense, which makes me kind of sad.

For the last 9 years, trick or treating has been followed by a Samhain ritual led by me, with a dozen to a hundred of my community, but this year I can’t meet with them. There’s a conference in town (AAR - the American Academy of Religions) and more than a few of the attendees are potential employers in my husband’s field. The Pagan Studies folks are doing a Samhain ritual, so I’m going to go to that with him. I’m sad that I won’t be working it with my peeps, but I’m excited about getting to relax and attend, instead of running the thing.

2. What if any decorations do you do for Halloween? I don’t decorate myself, but my friend/neighbor goes a little nuts, and she usually talks me into putting a few of her severed heads out my window or some such stuff.

3. Why don’t kids dress up as monsters anymore? Oh, they do here. More superhero stuff, but there’s still monstrous fun, too. My friends and I were never into monsters, to be honest.

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  1. Stay home & pass out candy while Mom helps at the church Harvest party.
    Then go to work later that night.

Or just sleep until I have to get up for work.

  1. Just standard autumn decorations.

  2. I don’t know, but they don’t seem to as much. Maybe it’s because there’s not a lot of new monster movies that little kids can watch without freaking out & they don’t have as many opportunities to see the older, tamer ones.

But a great non-monster costume a neighbor kid wore last year- StrongBad!

I gave him extra candy!

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Sadly sitting by the door holding a bowl of candy and drinking beer while reflecting on the only thing that I don’t like about my townhouse is that we don’t get any trick or treaters.

I was so jazzed up last year (our first out of an apartment) that I bought two cases of full sized Snickers bars because passing out full sized candy bars was one of those childhood promises I made to myself that I won’t let getting older put the kibosh on, but not one kid came by. I ended up passing out the rest of my sixer to the neighbors who felt bad for the forlorn dude peaking out the door every thirty seconds so they put on costumes and stopped by to get some candy, but left with candy and PBR (note: there was no childhood promise made about giving away bottles of Guinness, those were kept to myself :wink: ).

But I get to go to a costume party at my girlfriend’s sisters house on Saturday, so that will be pretty cool.