Halloween Memories
This month, we’re taking a slight departure from our usual Round Robin topic of writing and our writing process. It is the time of spooky, after all, although, perhaps, not all of these childhood Halloween memories you’ll wind through will be spooky. The ones I’ll be sharing aren’t. Well, I don’t think so, anyway. My Halloween memories revolve around, first, my sister and I trick or treating around the neighborhood in the dark without our parents. I don’t remember if an older sibling came with us, but, by the time I was eight, I don’t think they did. Janna, my older sister, and I both had large pillowcases to fill with candy. We always came home with at least a half pillowcase full of candy. Lots and lots of candy. You know, back when the candy wasn’t bite-sized, but rather full-sized candy bars, jawbreakers, and the occasional apple (before the razor blade scare). My sister and I would hoard our candy—well, honestly, we’d gorge on the candy, eating a couple, before setting it aside and making it last as long as we could. It became a competition to see who could make their candy last the longest. Honestly, I don’t remember who won. There’s a good possibility we might have sneaked some from the other’s bag when they weren’t looking. We shared a room. There was no place you could hide something like that without the other finding it. LOL Besides, the memories are a bit foggy. (Grin) It’s been a number of years, after all.
Once more people moved out to our neighborhood, we grew up a bit and trick-or-treated separately with our friends. I believe it was in the seventh grade. They’d just come out with hair rinse, and I decided I wanted to be Vampira for Halloween. It was perfect. I could wear my fancy white, lacy dress, dye my blonde hair black for the night, and wash the dye out after trick-or-treating. My oldest sister, a cosmetologist, warned me it wouldn’t be that easy, but, me being twelve and knowing it all (hahaha), ignored her advice. For the next six weeks, I walked around with gray-green hair. Used to being teased, I brazened it out. It took less than a day before people realized I wasn’t going to let it bother me. It became something I joked about, even though I was horrified in the beginning. It would eventually rinse out, and there was nothing I could do about it.
By the time high school came around, I was on the water polo team and our season ended right around Halloween. Every year, I threw a costume party for the team at my parents’ house. Most of the team (both JV and varsity) would come, we’d watch scary movies (they’d watch scary movies, if I’m honest, I didn’t) all night, most brought sleeping bags, and we’d all crash in the living room. This was a co-ed team. We had a great time. One year, I dressed as a flapper and Jim Service, a fellow water polo player, was an ace pilot. Somewhere, packed away in a safe place, is the picture of the two of us. It’s a great photo and brings back a lot of wonderful memories. Those were good times. Unfortunately, I have no idea where that safe place is.
As I got older, and after my kid became a teen, I returned to the costume I’ve worn most of my adult life: the Grim Reaper. I’ve scared a lot of people in that costume. I’ve walked through haunted houses and had the cast think I was part of it. For a few years in a row, I’d hide in the bushes at my parents’ house and scare the tweens/teens. Recently, I’ve introduced this joy of scaring them to my teen, who dresses as a plague doctor. This picture is of the two of us a few years ago. And the video farther down is of a teen startled by me emerging from the shadows and running down my mother’s driveway screaming. I have to say, it was awesome.
Halloween, next to Christmas, is my favorite holiday. Maybe it’s the costumes. Maybe it’s terrifying others. Maybe it’s the spiders. Whatever it is, I love Halloween.
If you’re looking for a creepy, horror read, be sure to check out my book The Whispering House.
If you enjoyed my stories, be sure to follow the links below for more childhood Halloween memories:
Skye Taylor
Anne Stenhouse
Victoria Chatham
Connie Vines
Dr. Bob Rich
Rhobin L Courtright
Scary moments for some, but fun ones for you! Great stories, and after all, Halloween is meant to have unexpected and scary moments.
A lot of fun. My teen loves doing it, too. My husband doesn’t understand. LOL
I know all about those special places we put things so we won’t lose them and then when we want to revisit, have no idea where to look. The parties sound like fun – somehow that was never part of our halloween, but I’m like an entire generation ahead of you and celebrations of the day hadn’t gotten so elaborate. The total extent of our decorating was a carved pumpkin with a candle inside.
My parents used to attend Halloween costume parties all of the time. There are some great photos of them at these parties in their costumes. They knew how to party. LOL
You certainly do enjoy dressing up! And I can just imagine you and your sister sneaking candy from each other.
I do. It’s a lot of fun. I still have my costumes from my shows and will occasionally wear them, too. Sneaking candy is something siblings do, right? (Grin)
You do getright into the spirit (Um!) of Hallowe’en, Marci. Like Skye, we didn’t get much beyond the scraped out turnip and a candle end. Guising was fun, though. Cheesy jokes and the occasional folk song on the doorstep of the parents’ approved friends’ houses. Anne
I too have very fond memories of Halloweens past. Leading up to it was a little bit of a drag because we gave away cinnamon flavor candied apples and regular caramel apples so there were dipping time spent that seemed to never end! As my Dad was a police officer, the parents let their kids munch away on them because they came from our house. We gave them out to the parents too if they wanted them! Trick or Treating was so fun. I too remember pillowcases full of candy & yup… full-size candy bars! My Mom made all our costumes but we had to get fitted over our jackets or snowsuits. Usually, we wore a lot of costumes that incorporated gloves! (Think Mickey’s big, white warm gloves!) It’s sad kids today will not have the same kinds of experiences.
It is. There are a lot of trick-or-treaters running around our neighborhood on Halloween. Before the lockdowns, it was crazy how many kids we’d get. I’m not sure how it will be this year, to be honest.