"This could be love - Love for fire"
Happy Halloween, everybody! It’s not my favorite holiday; in fact it just barely sneaks into the top 5, but it’s still a good time. And it might be Stacia’s favorite, so I should be careful what I say. Anyway, it’s Halloween, I have no idea what we’ll be doing to celebrate, and as usual it is rather unpleasant outside. It always seems funny (and a little sad) when the trick-or-treaters have elaborate costumes covered up by their winter jackets because it’s so cold out. Hey, at least it’s not snowing! So with nothing new to discuss about Halloween, here are some of my favorite memories from Halloweens past.
Interestingly enough, I lead off with an unpleasant memory. I couldn’t have been much more than 5 years old at the time, and I was dressed in the frog costume. For those unfamiliar, my Mom made a batch of really awesome costumes when I was young, including a penguin, a lion, some clowns, a frog, and maybe some others I can’t recall. The frog was noteworthy for having a homemade mask/helmet so the face couldn’t be seen, and it was more realistically froglike. So, as a frog, I was trick-or-treating with my Dad and brother when we got to the really elaborate house.
In our subdivision, there was one house that always had a really neat setup for Halloween. There were spiderwebs everywhere, creepy lighting, a fog machine, and a big cauldron on the front yard that was stirred by someone in a witch costume. We walked up, said trick-or-treat, and held out our plastic pumpkins for some candy. Unfortunately, the witch lady was a bit too in character, and said something about how a frog would go just perfectly in her brew. My dad and brother laughed it off, but I was really scared. I figured I looked too much like a real frog, and I’m pretty sure I walked the whole way home holding the frog head.
Of course, once I got a little older I wasn’t quite as terrified by our neighbors, and had some good times. I remember the time my brother was Luke Skywalker, using an early model glow stick as a lightsaber. For some reason the stick was sold with a rigid clear plastic tube. The idea was you crack the glow stick, slide it into the tube and fold over the ends of the stick to hold it in place. Well, it didn’t take long for us to realize that simply unhooking the bottom fold and snapping your wrist resulted in a launched glow stick, which was, naturally, awesome.
We were in the “on our own” stage of the trick-or-treating night, where our younger siblings were already home for the night and we were just racking up the candy and goofing around. As we switched off playing with the lightsaber, my brother gave it one particularly vigorous snap, and off it went. It sailed up into the night sky, gently arcing in a nice parabola and finally landing… on the roof of a house. Well, there was no getting it back at that point, so we just went on, needing to provide just a big more costume explanation to those who asked.
I can’t forget the Star Trek costume my Mom made for me in 6th grade, and which I wore every year until I literally couldn’t fit in it anymore. I already had all the gear, with the communicator, tricorder, and phaser, so being in uniform to match was too cool. And not to be too full of myself, I only applied the rank pins to make myself a commander, not a captain. Besides, the commander got to go on all the really fun away team missions. This was my all-time favorite costume, and I even have a picture of myself in it hanging on my wall at home (thanks Mom and Dad!).
Then there’s lots of fun memories walking my younger brother or sister around as they trick-or-treated when they were younger. We never went far or late into the night until they got a little older, but just the time spent together between houses was really nice. I enjoyed our candy recycling program, where we’d make periodic return trips to the house to dump out what we’d accumulated. Then we’d quickly sort it to find the less desirable candies and put those in our outgoing candy bucket. My parents always bought lots of good stuff in the days leading up to Halloween, and it was up to us to make sure that it lasted the night!
There was the faceless ghoul mask, the cat nose and the mardi gras mask I combined into what I still think was a pretty neat costume. There were the fun glow-in-the-dark vampire fangs we all used to love. Trick-or-treating in the mall the day before Halloween. And who could forget the year we dressed up as the cast of Little Red Riding Hood? I know whomever played Grandma certainly can’t! And there’s a lot more that keeps coming back as I write this, but not enough time for it all.
Looking back, it seems like I’ve always had a fair amount of fun on Halloween, especially when you consider that I never used to be a huge fan of chocolate (which has since been rectified, incidentally). I don’t think there’s any way it can overtake anyone in the all-important holiday rankings, but it has its place. Don’t think that a low ranking means I don’t love you, Halloween. And we’ll just see – maybe we’ll find something fun to do this year too.
Happy Halloween, everybody! It’s not my favorite holiday; in fact it just barely sneaks into the top 5, but it’s still a good time. And it might be Stacia’s favorite, so I should be careful what I say. Anyway, it’s Halloween, I have no idea what we’ll be doing to celebrate, and as usual it is rather unpleasant outside. It always seems funny (and a little sad) when the trick-or-treaters have elaborate costumes covered up by their winter jackets because it’s so cold out. Hey, at least it’s not snowing! So with nothing new to discuss about Halloween, here are some of my favorite memories from Halloweens past.
Interestingly enough, I lead off with an unpleasant memory. I couldn’t have been much more than 5 years old at the time, and I was dressed in the frog costume. For those unfamiliar, my Mom made a batch of really awesome costumes when I was young, including a penguin, a lion, some clowns, a frog, and maybe some others I can’t recall. The frog was noteworthy for having a homemade mask/helmet so the face couldn’t be seen, and it was more realistically froglike. So, as a frog, I was trick-or-treating with my Dad and brother when we got to the really elaborate house.
In our subdivision, there was one house that always had a really neat setup for Halloween. There were spiderwebs everywhere, creepy lighting, a fog machine, and a big cauldron on the front yard that was stirred by someone in a witch costume. We walked up, said trick-or-treat, and held out our plastic pumpkins for some candy. Unfortunately, the witch lady was a bit too in character, and said something about how a frog would go just perfectly in her brew. My dad and brother laughed it off, but I was really scared. I figured I looked too much like a real frog, and I’m pretty sure I walked the whole way home holding the frog head.
Of course, once I got a little older I wasn’t quite as terrified by our neighbors, and had some good times. I remember the time my brother was Luke Skywalker, using an early model glow stick as a lightsaber. For some reason the stick was sold with a rigid clear plastic tube. The idea was you crack the glow stick, slide it into the tube and fold over the ends of the stick to hold it in place. Well, it didn’t take long for us to realize that simply unhooking the bottom fold and snapping your wrist resulted in a launched glow stick, which was, naturally, awesome.
We were in the “on our own” stage of the trick-or-treating night, where our younger siblings were already home for the night and we were just racking up the candy and goofing around. As we switched off playing with the lightsaber, my brother gave it one particularly vigorous snap, and off it went. It sailed up into the night sky, gently arcing in a nice parabola and finally landing… on the roof of a house. Well, there was no getting it back at that point, so we just went on, needing to provide just a big more costume explanation to those who asked.
I can’t forget the Star Trek costume my Mom made for me in 6th grade, and which I wore every year until I literally couldn’t fit in it anymore. I already had all the gear, with the communicator, tricorder, and phaser, so being in uniform to match was too cool. And not to be too full of myself, I only applied the rank pins to make myself a commander, not a captain. Besides, the commander got to go on all the really fun away team missions. This was my all-time favorite costume, and I even have a picture of myself in it hanging on my wall at home (thanks Mom and Dad!).
Then there’s lots of fun memories walking my younger brother or sister around as they trick-or-treated when they were younger. We never went far or late into the night until they got a little older, but just the time spent together between houses was really nice. I enjoyed our candy recycling program, where we’d make periodic return trips to the house to dump out what we’d accumulated. Then we’d quickly sort it to find the less desirable candies and put those in our outgoing candy bucket. My parents always bought lots of good stuff in the days leading up to Halloween, and it was up to us to make sure that it lasted the night!
There was the faceless ghoul mask, the cat nose and the mardi gras mask I combined into what I still think was a pretty neat costume. There were the fun glow-in-the-dark vampire fangs we all used to love. Trick-or-treating in the mall the day before Halloween. And who could forget the year we dressed up as the cast of Little Red Riding Hood? I know whomever played Grandma certainly can’t! And there’s a lot more that keeps coming back as I write this, but not enough time for it all.
Looking back, it seems like I’ve always had a fair amount of fun on Halloween, especially when you consider that I never used to be a huge fan of chocolate (which has since been rectified, incidentally). I don’t think there’s any way it can overtake anyone in the all-important holiday rankings, but it has its place. Don’t think that a low ranking means I don’t love you, Halloween. And we’ll just see – maybe we’ll find something fun to do this year too.
And you can't forget about all of the great costumes from Iowa State... the cow, the demon, and Optimus Prime!
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