Things to Get

You in the Mood

Who doesn’t love the month leading up to Halloween? Even though it gets colder and darker as the month of October unfolds, and the leaves keep falling off the trees at a pace that increases as each day passes. In fact, this leaf loss thing seems to create this forlorn, dead to the world look that only adds to an overall ambiance leading up to the holiday. To my way of thinking, Halloween just wouldn’t be Halloween if night with its obligatory blackness didn’t sneak up on us a little bit at a time as each day passes.

October 31^st finally does arrive, and it’s almost like you’re a vampire and can’t wait for it to get gloomy and ominous outside. When you were a kid, so you could slip into your costume (with the obligatory snow suit, this being Silverton) and begin Trick-or-Treating. As an adult, so the true feeling of the holiday can finally kick in. Sometimes you need a legitimate excuse to dress up in a goofy costume. Halloween is as good a reason as any, don’t you agree? Even if you don’t, so what. Let the guilt kick in

Lately, one of my favorite activities associated with the holiday is something I do on a regular basis as part of my restaurant job. Going to the P.O. most days to check the snail mail for my boss. All sorts of catalogues are sitting inside her mailbox and the Halloween themed ones totally dominate during the months of September & October. To the point where anything they’re trying to sell that isn’t Halloween oriented is either Christmas one month too early, or some sort of strange summer themed object they’ve got way too much of at the companies’ warehouse and want to unload – on the cheap.

Just like the holiday itself, the variety and selection of Halloween themed products has definitely increased. Everything from battery operated zombie glass holders to animated jumping spiders, motion sensor sweeping brooms, screaming door mats, and 1000-watt fog machines. All of it so you can focus on creating the perfect atmosphere in and around your house. Scary, but if you’ve got kids and want to give out Trick-or-Treat candy without enhancing the somewhat justifiable perception that you might be an anti-social curmudgeon, not too frightful.

Sort of amazing when you think about it. The entire holiday of Halloween seems to have gotten bigger and grander. I love it, and look forward to the day when I’ll have a house and an actual front yard of my own to put all those fright-enhanced gadgets and do-dads out on display. Finally destroying the myth certain folks have that I’m indeed one of those misanthropic curmudgeons. Yes I am eccentric, but that has more to do with this whole writing obsession of mine.

This brings up another subject. A lot of folks don’t even bother with spending lots of money most of us don’t have to get ready for spook night. Instead, they spend all sorts of free time doing the arts-n-crafts thing with that self-same fright night in mind.

The classic example of this is of course Martha Stewart, the queen of modern day artisan, projects. Why spend all that extra money to purchase Halloween displays when you can do-it-yourself and construct a somewhat adequate spectacle in and of itself. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work out that way.

Nine times out of ten people (including most, if not all of my friends-myself included) keep putting off the set-up of ghost-like figurines until its almost too late. Then what they end up building isn’t so good. This is actually quite similar to the costume conundrum, but then that’s beside the point. What they do end up constructing and putting out on display is akin to that Christmas light extravaganza you drove by last December. The artistic genius that built that only put the minimal amount of work they could spare into the project, and thinking back on the entire evening, viewing those lights was distinctly similar to other craptaculars you’ve driven across.

For now though, let me just concentrate on getting my costume ready by the end of the month. This year I started thinking about it way back in late August, and stumbled on the perfect props at a yard sale just after Labor Day. Head gear, a T-shirt, and lots of other ideas for the accompanying physique and pants to match my costume. Purchased a character wig for a bald old man with 60s-Hippy gray hair that looks like it hasn’t been touched by an actual comb since the Eisenhower administration. Sort of like a certain senator from the great state of Vermont who ran for president, but missed out on the democratic nomination. A foreboding of my future appearance? We won’t talk about that.