And it's not just Halloween, but the entire month of October. It's like 31 days of increasing spookiness that all leads up to one fantastic night. Granted, this year has been a little iffy with some odd health related issues (damn you cold that refuses to go away), a hockey team that can't seem to win a home game to save their lives, and some serious work drama... but I still have found time to take an obscene bliss in buying pumpkins, visiting a Halloween store, downloading silly Halloween apps for my iphone, watching the obligatory mass amounts of Horror movies, playing Halloween-related things in my usual MMO, and so on. Nothing can kill this month for me...NOTHING.
I guess it started when I was little in the fact that my parents always let me dress up as whatever I wanted. It didn't seem to matter how much a costume cost (within reason...sometimes I got a cheap knock-off) if I wanted to be a mermaid, then dammit my mom and dad saw to it that I got to be a mermaid! Same went for Jasmine from the Disney Aladdin movie (they even colored my hair!), Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog, a Hobbit, Kitana from Mortal Kombat, and so on. Of course I did the obligatory angel one year, a witch, a devil... but I think the seriously custom home made stuff where we ended up dying fabric to make it work was always the best. Hell, I don't even remember it but I have to admit one of the best costumes I ever had was when my parents dressed me up like a bunch of grapes (dark green sweat shirt and pants and purple balloons pinned to my clothing. ha ha)
My parents always made sure to decorate the house...and when I was old enough, once again, let me call the shots there too. If I wanted plastic pumpkins filled with glowsticks to light up the walkway - I got it. Spiderwebs? No problem. Dry ice? Why not? Tombstones hand made from giant blocks of styrofoam? Hell. Yes.
Even if we were out of town on vacation (I can think of at least two times this happened) my mom and dad always made sure I'd still have a pumpkin or two to carve.
In short...they KNEW I loved this Holiday...and they fully supported it. Sure Christmas is awesome in its own right... but Halloween just brings this overwhelming giddiness out of me. Hell, I STILL plan costumes and dress up even if I'm not going anywhere... (Last few years it's been the usual stand-by costume of American McGee's Alice) yes, I'm a nerd like that.
So yes... this week is just awesome for me. I get to carve up 4 pumpkins this year (yes, pictures to come) and I know I'll be doing it while watching some cheesy horror movies that I may or may not have seen a billion times before (Dawn of the Dead will be a must!) as well as watching The Nightmare Before Christmas...because that's just tradition at this point.
And because I live in Southern California... On November 1st it's like a bonus day of skeletons and such... I head over to Olvera Street for all the Dia de los Muertos festivities I can take. Sugar skulls for the win!
And I'll finish on this...
Get your damn Christmas decorations OUT OF THE STORES... at least wait until my Holiday is over! Once November hits I don't care anymore...but dear god I don't want to even see the hinting of pine trees with little lights on them until I'm tearing down the tombstones in my front yard!



















