Scary Sweet Memories

What do you get when you cross a zombie, a punk, and a 60’s flower-child hippie?

…

..While I also would have accepted the answer of ‘a mixed-up Village People tribute band’, I have gotta say that the aforementioned made for a really awesome 2010 Halloween season in MJ-world.

I spent some time this week wrapping up all-things-Halloween. Packing away the costume bin, bleaching out stubborn red hair dye, editing and posting pictures (of course..) and composting my jack-o-lantern that did not age too gracefully. But I’m already finding myself thinking about the tricks and treats that next year will bring.

Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. I’m not a big fan of autumn (it’s just always been to me a season where everything dies and turns cold..), but the holiday at the end of October always eases me into the change (and now there’s Zombie Day too!!) I love costumes, scary movies, black cats, and too much candy. And Halloween covers it all.

Strange as it may seem, Halloween also gives me the same sort of ‘home and family’ vibe that Christmas brings to most people. It was a special holiday even while I was growing up. My mom would take my brother and me to each pick out our own perfect pumpkin, and carving it was something I really looked forward to (that goopy feeling of reaching in and grabbing pumpkin guts is just awesome for some reason..). Halloween night, we’d all sit down at the table for supper (a VERY rare happening in my family) and have the exact same thing every year- a Tombstone pizza, cottage cheese, and Dr. Pepper. (Healthy, huh?..) Then, we’d get costumed up while watching the newest ‘Treehouse of Horror’ Simpsons Halloween Special and then go out trick or treating- visiting every house in town that had its yardlight on. Afterwards, my brother and I dumped out our candy bags on the living room floor, sorted everything into piles (except the duck foot I got one year from my grandpa, wasn’t sure how to categorize that one..), spent forever deciding on the perfect trades (Skittles are worth a Crunch AND a 100Grand. FYI.), and then pigged out while watching horror flicks for the rest of the night. Perfect. And every year, those same good feelings come back. I’ve gotta start going back home to my family for the Halloween holiday season..

I always had SO much fun thinking of and putting together a costume. Getting into the look and character of someone other than yourself is lots of fun. I’ve been remembering lots of the crazy things I’ve been over the years… A shadow, Swamp thing’s girlfriend (most sloppy costume award), an Egyptian, a black cat (yep, complete with my mom’s homemade mask and tail), an 80’s glam rocker, a ghostly prom queen, a 15-year old 5-year old (my excuse to color on my face with markers..), the masked killer guy from Scream (which is a mask I also wore with my black gown on graduation day, haha), Kung-Fu Panda, and a billion other things in my 20-some years of celebrating ‘wear a costume’ day. It’s so awesome to pretend to be someone/something else for a while, and going out to see everyone else’s getups is a blast. I wish there were more dress-up days during the year! I’m gonna start having costume parties. It’ll be awesome..

But until I get that going, I’ll be keeping my eyes on the calendar and waiting for the next October 31^st to roll around. Cheers to the sweetest and spookiest holiday of the year!!

In and out of disguise,
~emjae.