# Halloween



## Pythagoras (Oct 28, 2014)

It's coming up. Personally, I find no other holiday as stimulating to the imagination as the day the spirits walk the earth among the living. Plus, so much party!

Anyone doing anything fun? Any fantastic costume ideas?:bat:


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## Ireth (Oct 28, 2014)

I'll probably wind up on candy-distribution duty like last year. Debating between a classic witch costume and an elf costume I'm working on for the premiere of the final Hobbit movie this December.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 28, 2014)

I just put up an entry on this on my Wordpress blog.



> If any of America’s major commercialized holidays gets a “Bah, humbug!” out of me, without a shred of doubt it’s Halloween.
> 
> For one, spiders creep the hell of me out. Anything with eight legs and eight eyes is irrefutable evidence that the forces of evolution don’t get two shits about human aesthetics. Thankfully most (but not all) of the beasties are too tiny to notice in real life, but Halloween season sure loves to force over-sized spiders onto everyone who dares go shopping.
> 
> And while we’re at it, I don’t care much for vampires or zombies either. For some reason...



Tyrannoninja Wordpress


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## Mythopoet (Oct 28, 2014)

Oh, Jabrosky's such a party pooper. 

I spend too much time assembling costumes for my kids to do one for myself anymore. 

My oldest daughter is dressing as Sakura Haruno from Naruto this year. Pink hair dye and all. 

My oldest son is dressing as an Enderman from Minecraft. (Yeah, I know, an all black costume is a terrible idea, but his heart is so set on it.) 

My younger daughter will be wearing the only homemade costume this year: a sparkly Queen Elsa dress. (Which I still need to finish sewing!)

My two youngest sons are going to be Buzz Lightyear and Woody. 

Maybe one of these years I'll have the energy to do a costume for myself again... lol


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## Svrtnsse (Oct 28, 2014)

I'll join Jabrosky in pooping on the party as well.

When I grew up Halloween was never a big deal. As I recall, my parents took us kids to the local cemetery in the evening to look at the candles at the graves and then we had a nice dinner, but that's about it.

Halloween celebration started popping up as a thing when I was in my early twenties, mostly in the form of loads of cheap plastic decorations that really weren't any kind of scary at all. At this time I was also really serious about being a part of the goth/industrial scene, which probably had a bit to do with my disrespect for the holiday as well.

To me, Halloween feels more like a commercially fabricated holiday than a "real" one - but don't ask me what a real holiday is. 

That said...
Loads of people have a load of fun with it, and that's worth quite a lot as well. 
I don't personally enjoy dressing up, but I won't begrudge those who do (my boss loves it and came to work dressed up as Alice (mad Alice from the recent games) last year. I also have plenty of friend with really young kids and seeing their pictures is also kind of fun.

Then there's the costumes on the drunks I see when I walk home from work, just after midnight. That's a rant for another thread, so let's not go there.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: I don't personally bother with it, but it doesn't bother me that others do.


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## Incanus (Oct 28, 2014)

Well, even though I'm virtually a shut-in these days, Halloween has always been my favorite.

In fact, once a year is not quite enough.  And that is why I am campaigning for bringing back Walpurgis Night (or, more properly, Nacht).  It is a sister-holiday to Halloween, being exactly six months apart from it--the last day of April.  There needn't be the handing out of candy, or whatnot, but whatever it is, it should probably involve bonfires and scary costumes.

Yes, start celebrating Walpurgis Night next year!  (Remember, it's a german word, so the 'W' is pronounced as a 'V').


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## Steerpike (Oct 28, 2014)

Always been one of my favorite holidays, ever since I was a little kid.


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## CupofJoe (Oct 28, 2014)

Most likely I will be joining friends in jumping-the-fire at midnight. There may well be savoury cakes and almost certainly some variation of alcohol. Music - there will be music too; drumming, pipes and singing.
The very hearty and stalwart amongst us will make through to dawn and then go for coffee to recover.


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## Nihal (Oct 28, 2014)

It was never a proper holiday where I live. :|

We don't trick or treat and collect candies, wear costumes (unless it's a party inspired by your Halloween) and none of these things I see in movies from English speaking countries. When I was little I had my doubts about you really letting your children run in costumes collecting candy at night! We have other holidays for costumes and candy collecting though (_Carnival_ and _St. Cosmas and Damian Day_).

Fun fact: Halloween goes by the "Witches' Day" name here.


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## Devor (Oct 28, 2014)

I hate the annual "What will you be this year?  Let's spend a lot of money on a cheap costume that you wear once, that doesn't look right, and will sit in your closet for years before you decide it's okay to throw out."  So this year it's my goal to start buying a piece of a quality costume every year, and put together a cool looking wizard outfit over time.

My kids are going as dragons.  They'll grow out of the costumes, so what else can you do?


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## Svrtnsse (Oct 28, 2014)

Devor said:


> My kids are going as dragons.  They'll grow out of the costumes, so what else can you do?



Feed them lots of sulfur in their diet so they start growing scales and breathing fire. Totally works! True story.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 28, 2014)

If I were to ever get into Halloween and dress up, I'll probably choose a Viking or Anglo-Saxon warrior costume. People tell me I look quintessentially Northern European because of my blond hair and blue eyes, so an ancient Germanic character would suit me perfectly. Come to think of it, I might even claim to be the god Thor himself. I'm a heavyset guy with a big appetite, which isn't much different from how Thor is sometimes described.

I wonder if anyone here has considered dressing up as characters from their own writing?


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## Incanus (Oct 28, 2014)

Jabrosky said:


> I wonder if anyone here has considered dressing up as characters from their own writing?



Interesing idea--probably better in theory than in practice.  Somehow, I picture myself spending 45 minutes of every hour having to explain the costume.


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## SM-Dreamer (Oct 28, 2014)

Jabrosky said:


> I wonder if anyone here has considered dressing up as characters from their own writing?



I did when I was 15 - I remember a cloak and a sword, but little else. Actually, my best friend and I were collaborating on a project, and we both dressed up. It was the first Halloween where I wasn't with family (aka my siblings I had to watch over) so my friend and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

I love Halloween. Always have. Not so much the candy (well, that used to be part of it, but not so much anymore) but the haunted houses and the costumes. I love dressing up, but I never allow myself to do it anymore - Halloween was the one time of year I'd let loose. Usually as a sorceress or some such (when I was 16, according to my younger brother, I was Lady Anime and he was Sir Xbox. We were weird.) As for the haunted houses, I've always laughed at them and enjoyed the attempts at scaring me (mind you that I can't watch a horror movie without hiding behind a pillow), and I played a demon at a haunted house with a friend once. God my throat was sore from screeching after that...

Sadly, I live in the country where there's no kids to come to my door, I have no munchkins of my own to pass off as my theoretical reason for trick-or-treating, and I'm too much of a hermit to have any parties to go to. Ah well.


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## Pythagoras (Oct 28, 2014)

Halloween is my favorite holiday. And to you party-poopers out there: can you name for me a fun, widely-celebrated holiday that has not been commercialized? Blame society, not the holiday. If it's just because you hate spiders, well, that's just unfortunate. 

This year I will be dressing as the Stairway to Heaven guy. Or, for those of you who prefer tarot cards to good old-fashioned Rock n' Roll, the Hermit. 

To the uninitiated, I will simply be a wizard. Which is fine by me.


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## Tom (Nov 3, 2014)

You and me, Jabrosky. I'm what you'd call decidedly Nordic; during my ill-spent freshman year of high school, I was able to fool an older couple into thinking I was a Norwegian exchange student. 

We could be the terrifying Germanic barbarian two-person army. Deep down I've always wanted to be a Viking. 

My Halloween festivities this year consisted of escorting my younger sister and brother (a rabid Buffalo Bills fan and Captain America, respectively), counting all the little girls dressed as Elsa (there were about 10 in all), and daring to enter our town's annual haunted house, A Nightmare on Elm Street, for the first time. Though I'm not the easily frightened type, it was appropriately scary.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 3, 2014)

Of course my girls are princesses, even when it's not Halloween.











And of course, I thought of my costume after the night was over. On the bright side, I have plenty of time to get the outfit together (though I'll inevitably procrastinate and not do it, so I ain't saying nothin' until next Fall. If…).


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