New thread for a new year.
For the first time in many years I’ll be attending a costume party and will have to conjure a costume. Not really my thing, but GF insists.
In unrelated fun news I was walking along the beachfront where there are low-rise apartment / condos fronting a street that fronts the sand. And hanging up from the ceiling on someone’s balcony was a life size 3D plastic skeleton. So far so ordinary. It was wearing a well-stuffed black bikini. That was new and worth a laugh.
I noticed a skeleton on a stripper pole the other day. It was in someone’s yard, with a few other skeletons.
I haven’t always been a Halloween person, but in the last few years I’ve been at least a participant. It was a conscious decision to loosen up and try to be happier, instead of following my inclination to become a pessimistic miserable old bitch. 
And I am excited about my costume! I’m planning to be Dolly Parton. I think it would be cool if everybody was Dolly this year, but my goodness. This has not been an easy or cheap thing to put together. I’ve probably spent nearly a hundred dollars already, mostly on the wig.
Saw a gigantic chicken skeleton in a yard.
Halloween has always been my second favorite holiday. Unfortunately I’ve gone through pretty much all the stages of the Halloween experience: trick or treating myself; being invited to Halloween parties in my 20s; having kids and taking them trick or treating; and now that our kids are grown, my wife and I are relegated to going for a kid-free walk in the neighborhood on Halloween. We don’t get trick or treaters at our house, since we’re set well back on a busy road, hidden behind trees.
I don’t remember the last time I was invited to a Halloween party, but when I was, one of my favorite things was coming up with a creative costume that leaned strongly into the macabre. Maybe my most creative costume was when I took half of an old motocross bike handlebar that sort of looked like it came from a motorcycle, rigged it so it looked like it was sticking out of my chest, with a lot of fake blood on a white t-shirt, and went as Jimmy from the song ‘Leader of the Pack’. Of course, the handlebar made dancing difficult so it quickly came off, but it made for a good entrance.
If that’s your natural inclination, you certainly hide it well here on the SDMB! You’re always a very positive, interesting poster, as far as I’ve ever experienced.
Well, thank you! I guess dressing up for Halloween does really help. 
I’m not dressing up for the holiday, but travelling for it!
We’re flying to Austin TX October 30, Flying back November 3 (yes, I know). We’ll stay with friends for a few days, including the holiday, to eat, drink and be merry. While we won’t be dressing up, we’ll do a lot of people watching in the Domain in Austin, and watch a series of truly horrible, no-good, very bad horror movies, both Riffed and not.
I’m traveling too and will be away on the 31st. Coming home on the 2nd. All these plans were made a month-ish ago with no awareness of any election day. If asked back then I’d have said “Oh, yeah, I guess there is one coming up. Probably Tue the 10th.”
Since I never vote in person, nor watch the news while it’s happening, the actual date of an election is mostly immaterial to me. Elections are not spectator sports. And should not be riveting spectacle either. He said hopefully.
I’m content to read about the results in the news the next day.
I walked through a local arboretum which is currently holding a scarecrow exhibit. One of them was Dolly Pumpkin. Even had a cardboard guitar.
I imagine that took at least three pumpkins!
I saw this on the road near my house yesterday. 'Tis the season.
I’m starting early this year with the Back from the Grave Halloween Ball in Shinjuku, Tokyo this weekend. Fifty (mostly Japanese) garage, surf, and rockabilly bands in a noon to early morning marathon. All I have for a costume is a zig-zag Charlie Brown shirt.
I’ll be home in time to host our annual outdoor movie night on Halloween. This year’s feature is The Village of the Damned (1960).
Time to break up with her 
.
Well, perhaps not 
. But I haven’t dressed up since I was twelve and you couldn’t make me do it with a gun to my head. Not even for love!
But I’ve got a personal neurotic aversion to stuff like LARPing, costume parties/cosplay, deep-in-character role-playing (i.e. that requires a lot of in person acting) - basically anything that involves me playing a role. Couldn’t tell you why, it doesn’t bother me when other people do it and I’m fine doing it internally when playing a computer rpg or something. But for some reason doing it in person just feels cringe.
The servers’ chit chat at my favorite breakfast joint about various folks’ plans for Halloween led to reminisces about it having been our high family holiday 60 years ago, and finally my being invited to a party Friday night the end of this month [Halloween’een?] - “You should come! You don’t need to wear a costume.”
Ever the quick wit, I responded “Oh? Clothing optional?” and got the saucy retort “Well, that should be scary enough!”
As it happens, cleaning out an old cedar chest yesterday I stumbled across a purple cape and pointed hat with stars n’ moons crafted for me by a high school sweetheart in 1972 - and I think I’ll put it on, show up and make an old fool of myself at a young folks party because - you know - they asked me to, and that’s special.
Some years back a friend showed up at a costume party wearing a sign that said “Dressed like a normal person” over her usual attire. I think it was supposed to be a joke because she was anything but normal.
On Halloween or a couple of days before, I like to watch Halloween episodes of shows: The Simpsons, Frasier, King of the Hill, Home Improvement, etc. I watch Christmas episodes in December.
I also read the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (Alvin Schwartz) series every year, even though I am in my late 30s. The notes at the back are interesting and I’ve looked up some of the tales in other books that the author referenced.
Well, since you put it that way, I’m SURE you made the right decision! LOL
We usually go to my wife’s Photographic Society Halloween party every year, and were getting ready with costumes. But they decided to actually hold the party on Halloween evening. (Usually it’s a week earlier).
That’s no good – we want to be at home giving out the candy and greeting the kids. So it’s no go, this year. I might put something on. We usually drag the SoloStove out front and start a roaring fire, complete with Fire Color Crystals to turn it the appropriate blue-green-purple.
I see that there have been threads asking if Halloween has penetrated into European culture, or elsewhere in the world. Last year I was in Germany on business. There was one small section of a huge toy store that had Halloween stuff (Americans may have lost places like KayBee Toy and Toys R Us to internet and Big Box Stores, but they’re alive and well in Germany, like bookstores). I assume American expatriates and kids watching American movies have tried out trick-or-treating. I wonder how well that goes over in a country where not everyone participates.
Anyway, I also saw some Halloween stuff in an “Adult” store, among the sex toys and videos. You know how American costumiers are always pushing things like “Sexy Mario Brothers” or “Sexy Gumby” and the like? This store had what I can only describe as “Sexy Disemboweled Lady”.
I hope you still have the long white beard! That’s going to look awesome on you. 
I’m not nearly so averse. Much more lazy and non-creative than anti-.
This may be extra interesting as we’ll be going to a party w GF’s late 20s daughter & her hubs. At a party of strangers GF & I might go sorta risque. Especially since we’ll be out of town and never see any of those people again. But with her daughter standing there? Hmm. At least we have the excuse that since we’re traveling, a highly elaborate outfit is impractical, so this’ll be a lightweight simple effort at most.
[aside]
Maybe next year. 
Oh yeah! I’d totally do that. An opportunity to be savored, not missed.
So Halloween with German characteristics?
Germans are rather infamous for their uninhibited radical approach to kinks. Not that their human nature is iota one different from yours, mine, or anyone else’s . But their society is seemingly a lot more comfortable with stuff that deeply squicks out the 'Murrican Puritan brigade.