Tag Archives: Halloween memories

October 8, 2025 · 8:48 pm

Halloween Memories

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays.

Back in ‘days of yore” (1492 when I was young) we trick-or-treated. I got together with my friends and we walked down to the neighborhood close to us where the houses were closer together and people were wonderful about turning their porch lights on to show you were welcome to come knock on the door.

We didn’t have our parents with us. We roamed for a couple of hours, going from welcoming house to the next until our containers were absolutely groaning from the weight of all the goodies we loved and we were finally tired from all the walking. We made our way home again where we dumped out our goodies on our beds and dove in to eat at least a couple of things before our parents announced it was time for bed.

Back in the ‘olden days’ parents didn’t have to worry about their children getting hurt or abducted. They just said, “have a great time” and got ready to answer their own doors for visitors.

Now parents either go with their children from house to house holding their hands or follow the kids in their cars. OR they arrange parties in their homes or go to community parties overseen by trusted adults.

Gone are the days of spending pennies on a costume, gathering your friends, shrieking in delight when you got good things or were “scared” by someone in a frightening mask. All you needed was a flashlight, a big container for goodies, and your friends…

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October 18, 2023 · 9:59 am

Halloween Past

@cutigers on X

My dad and I shared Halloween and the 4th of July as our favorite holidays.

I remember one Halloween when my dad, who was 6’2″ tall and skinny as a beanpole, dressed up as a pregnant nurse. I was just a child. I wish we had gotten a picture I could share with you, because as I think of it, I can see him right in front of my face, and I keep smirking and snorting with the memory.

My dad wore glasses and had a mustache and short goatee type beard. I don’t know where he found the nurse’s uniform, but he wore an old style nurse’s cap on his head with a blond wig, and his glasses, beard, and mustache hanging out. He put a pillow under the uniform part, and wore ‘hose’ and white sneakers. He wore a stethoscope around his neck and carried a HUGE syringe in the pocket.

He had made up a whole speech to go along with his costume. The only other memory I have of that Halloween was my parents’ friends laughing so hard they had trouble standing up. In fact, several took one look at him and made straight for a chair in our living room, laughing their heads off.

My dad has been gone a long time now. He said, “Remember me laughing.” It was a long time before I could, but as the years pass, I remember not only HIM laughing, but all the rest of us, as well.

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October 11, 2023 · 10:52 am

Halloween Memory

mbcreativestudio.com

My husband and I still feel bad when we think of one Halloween years and years ago when our son was about 5.

My husband decided to ‘get into the spirit’ and went out and bought a rubber mask. He tied a pillow around himself to give himself a hump back, made a hole in a large piece of burlap and pulled it over his head, then donned the mask. He looked really gruesome. He was proud of his costume and looked forward to trick-or-treating with our son, plus scaring kids who came to the door for candy.

Well, even though our son had watched the whole process of making the costume and watching my husband put it on, when it was altogether our son freaked. He was scared and crying. When it was obvious that our son was really upset, my husband took the costume off and took our son trick-or-treating while I handled our visitors.

When he got back, our son was sleepy, so he spread out on the couch while my husband put the costume back on and proceeded to have a grand time scaring all the kids. I had to go out and buy more candy because the word spread and I think the whole neighborhood turned out to see the scary thing at our house.

Even when the holiday was over and the mask was on the floor where we encouraged our son to stomp on it, if he wanted, or put it on – which he refused to do – our son still wasn’t happy until my husband put it away – far away.

A mixed bag of memories, for sure. Our son still remembers the mask, and NOW loves the idea…

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October 2, 2023 · 9:22 am

Halloween 2023 – 1

diydarlin.co

I love Halloween – the feeling, the creativity people show regarding costumes and decorations, trick-or-treating, Halloween parties, and more.

I have fond memories of trick-or-treating with my friends when I was in grade school – a hundred or so years ago. Back in the dark ages, it was safe to actually go trick-or-treating. A group of us would head out to the neighborhood behind us where the houses were closer together and the Halloween spirit was high. People would turn on their porch lights or keep their house doors open to show kids they were welcome.

We wouldn’t stop until our containers were full and we hardly had the strength to walk all the way home again. It was glorious.

The only warning back then was to be careful of apples because some bad people might put a razor blade in them. Since an apple was the least favorite thing I might gather that night, I could readily ‘watch out’ for that! :0)

I loved the freedom of that night. Being with friends so late at night, sharing the one night a year it was okay to gather and then eat candy, the day we donned our costumes and enjoyed the houses decorated for the occasion.

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October 31, 2022 · 8:48 am

Happy Halloween 2022!

Even though the world has essentially ruined Halloween for me, I still love seeing Ray Villaphane’s pumpkin carving, wonderfully creative handmade children’s costumes, and terrific displays with skeletons. I have wonderful memories of Halloweens as a child, and that will have to suffice.

We don’t have trick-or-treaters at our house because we live on the top of a ridge line up a steep gravelly driveway. The few kids that DO trick or treat nowadays are smart enough to go to the wonderful neighborhoods where the houses are closer together and most people have their porch lights on in welcome, enabling them to quickly gather goodies.

Dierk Schaefer photo-flickr.com

The ‘goody’ I wanted when I was a kid was a chocolate bar. When I got home from the gathering, I quickly went though everything to see if I had been lucky enough to get one.

historymaniacmegan.com

The only thing we were warned about was the possibility of a razor blade being imbedded in the middle of an apple. I didn’t worry, even if I DID get an apple, because to be honest, fruit was the furthest thing from my mind on Halloween.

Ray Villafane-m.imgur.com

Have a wonderful celebration tonight!

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October 12, 2022 · 10:02 am

Celebrating Halloween 2022

Halloween is a favorite holiday for me. I LOVE the memories I have of trick-or-treating with my friends, unworried about all the ugliness in the world. My concentration was on coming up with a costume (we never bought them at the store), and making sure I had a large container to carry and my flashlight worked. My friends and I would head to the housing addition next to ours, where the houses were a bit closer together and most people had their lights on, happy to participate in the holiday. We would return a couple of hours later, containers full of candy, stomachs full of candy we shouldn’t have eaten yet (the biggest worry THEN – back in 1492 – was a possible razor blade hidden in an apple.)

Gurardian Chaneque Sculpture-woolandclayco

Now my love for the holiday is centered in appreciating the creativity I find in costumes for kids, usually created by the parents, plus the fact that pumpkin carving is now an art form (rather than MY trying not to cut off an appendage while creating the simplest of jack-o-lanterns for our son.)

I’m already finding wonderful pumpkins by the acknowledged master of pumpkin carving, Ray Villafane, and I’ll be on the lookout for wonderful costumes to share.

I’m sad that the world is such these days that most kids don’t go trick-or-treating anymore, or are followed by alert parents in cars. Some parents get together to make parties that are carefully monitored to be safe for the kids. Sometimes haunted houses are created by the churches. All this – while nice of the volunteers – makes me a bit sad. I wish the kids could enjoy just one Halloween free of worry, where they could just experience the joy.

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October 5, 2021 · 1:35 pm

Ghouls for Halloween 2021

arbutushunter.blogspot.fr-SpunCottonOrnamentCo

I LOVE these! I WISH I could get them for my front porch.

One year when we were living in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in a neighborhood with a gazillion kids, my husband got into the spirit. He bought a super ugly, wonderful mask and then put a pillow on his back to create a hump-back and put an old military blanket over his head. He looked really scary. :0)

As he answered the door to the Trick-or-Treaters, there would be screams, laughs, etc. from the kids and their parents. We had more and more visitors as word spread. By the time we ran out of FIVE humongous bags of candy, my husband was exhausted, but still laughing like a loon.

Our son was about 4 at the time. My husband showed him the costume and he was NOT amused. My husband tried to calm him, but the man in the mask was NOT his daddy! Even when the mask was OFF, with my husband stomping on it on the floor, our son was still upset. We put it up in the closet, not taking it down again until our son decided there was nothing to fear.

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October 10, 2016 · 12:12 pm

Happy Halloween – Take 1

 

 

jol-videohive-net

videohive.net

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  I could only carve the most rudimentary of jack-o-lanterns, but I love seeing what creative people are doing these days, from the very traditional to objects-d’-art.

 

halcos-collegehumor-com

collegehumor.com

Needless to say, I also get a kick out of creative Halloween costumes, particularly ones that are DIY and the product of wonderful imaginations.

A hundred years ago when I was a child, we hadn’t become aware of the awful things that could happen to kids out alone at night. My friends and I went trick or treating together as a group, walking several miles to gather goodies, having the best time ever. I brought my candy home. My parents took a perfunctory look for razor blades in apples, and then tried to get me to eat only one piece – a thing that never happened.

I always wanted a costume from the store, a thing that also never happened. Usually I ended up with a mask, carried a sack, and enjoyed every minute.

As an adult, when my husband and I lived in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in a neighborhood FULL of kids, we took our son out to houses we knew, gathered a bit of candy, came home early and went through each piece carefully, and then gave him a couple of pieces to eat. He was very young and didn’t have particularly characters in mind that he wanted to be at that point, so we did the best we could do fashion something he liked.

My husband enjoyed dressing up and giving out candy. One year, in particular, he dressed up in a scary rubber mask, a big blanket over a humpback, etc. The kids would scream bloody murder when they saw him. Then – they would tell all their friends and come back! Everyone had a blast that year, but we spent WAAAY too much for candy. (I went out twice to get more when we ran out.)

Now we live at the top of a ridgeline up a steep driveway with few close neighbors, so the trick or treating thing is only a memory. So I look online at Jack-o-Lanterns and great costumes that I’ll happily share with you.

I hope you enjoy them!

 

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