1 mo. ago • 95%

What is your favorite memory from spooky season?

Mine would be the time my dad rigged a harness and "hung" himself from the carport beam, dressed to look like a stuffed Halloween decoration. He would grab at the bigger kids and parents when they came up to the door for candy. Scared the living bejeezus out of them.

24 comments

When I was a tween-teen my mom and I would thoroughly decorate our front yard and porch every year (for 5 or 6 years running) as a mini-haunted house. A lot of homemade decorations including a coffin my grandfather built for us. Then Halloween night I'd be in the coffin (which was on our porch) and she'd be there tending her cauldron or whatever worked for costume that year. When kids would come to the house she'd lift the coffin lid and I'd be in there with the bucket of candy. There was spooky music / sound effects, and some gloomy lighting. It was a mildly spooky vibe.

Very little kids (3 or 4) were often too scared to come up to the house and so one of the adults would have to come get their candy for them. I remember that, the last year we ended up doing it, one of the parents came up afterward and told us that their kid had been too scared to come up the year before and they talked about seeing "what was up there" on-and-off all year. And that year there were very proud to have gotten their own candy.

It's fun to think that my mom and I are part of that family's holiday memories.

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- Haha, the year before the carport harness thing, Dad did a mummy in a coffin since we had ready access to refrigerator boxes. I love that you held the candy in there! Gotta face one's fears to get the reward!
  
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Probably all the times I went to Spirit Halloween growing up. I really loved all the squishy gross-out toys, like creepy crawlies and rats.

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- I can smell this comment, and now I have even more microplastic in my blood.
  
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- One just opened in the old Rite Aid building near me. I haven't gone in one in ages. I may wander in just to look around.
  
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My wife and I used to get hot chocolate and visit every spirit Halloween in our state. Later on we got married on Halloween. So those two together are really special to me

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- All on the same day or did you space them out?
  
  Sounds like a dumb question, but I am married to an action figure collector, and we have made a few marathon toy runs to allll the stores over the years.
  
  And I love that your anniversary is Halloween!
  
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  It was Rhode Island so a very small state. Even so we'd only do like 2 in a day
  
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We've done Halloween in key west a couple of times. Zombie bike ride is super fun!

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- Dad lived there once upon a time and now makes an annual trek to Fantasy Fest. I've done Zombie crawls, but never a bike ride. How does one pedal or steer with mangled limbs? 😄
  
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  Very carefully. 😁 There are thousands of zombies participating, so you really just sit on a bike and 'flintstone' it. It's a fun time that can be as mild or as wild as you choose.
  
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I was like 9 and in a new school. My aunt died in a car crash that October. Days later, we’re at the most famous haunted house in the city, my parents had agreed to something months prior.

Anyway, 9 years old, horror house, haunted secret hallways, scary basements. October.

I don’t know what that means but, it always makes me feel something.

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- I don't know what to say. That's a whole lot for anyone to process in one month, much less a 9yo kid.
  
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Reading this little pumpkin shaped glow in the dark book about a witch. My whimsy levels went through the roof.

I wish I could remember what the book was called

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- Oh shit, I googled for what I could remember and I found it:
  
  A very scary jack-o'-lantern
  
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  There's a whole series!
  
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If anything, I spent spooky season cosplaying, nothing spectacular. Was never really a trick-or-treater unless it was a part of something else. My favorite cosplay was of Arezu. That day, everyone wanted me to trick-or-treat.

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- I remember having lots of Pickachus, a few Ashes, maybe a Naruto or two. One year I was visited by a Totoro, but otherwise nothing very niche. Did any adults recognize your character?
  
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  A surprising amount.
  
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My mom really got into Halloween when I was a kid. Even as I got a little older and not that into it she still decorated the house and put on a tape of spooky sounds that played through a boom-box hidden on the front patio when she would hand out candy for trick-or-treaters.

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Spooky season? You mean Halloween?

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