Ok, I was joking about this on Facebook so I decided to do a full fledged post on it. No tricks! Although if you do want a treat, ya know you can find out more about pre-ordering my 2nd chapbook at Folded Word. Haha! Ya know I had to!

I wanted to add a picture to the blog today but I couldn’t find one! Why is that? I actually know I took pictures a few years back when I did decorations but they are probably on my old, defunct laptop in someone’s basement or something.

This is just further evidence of my lack of Halloween Experience. I will recount, 10 or fewer, Halloween’s for you and show you how much of a Trick or Treat Virgin I am!

1. My first memory of trick or treating is odd. I have no costume. For some reason I am with my paternal grandparents at either their condo/townhouse in roughly the Virginia Beach area or someone else’s. I know they had one up there at some point because it was near Witch Duck Rd and well, that is a funny name. I went to a few doors there but I didn’t really know what to do and I had no costume. Lame. I am guessing I was about 6?
2. There were some of those really silly plastic costumes in a storage cabinet above the refrigerator. Maybe Strawberry Shortcake and the like. Ya know the kind that are a plastic mask with a string around your head and an outfit that is also of plastic and looks like you put a glove over your head to make you look like you were Rainbow Brite. So, guess we must have dressed up for school at least once or someone gave us costume hand-me-downs.
3. I remember asking my Mom why we didn’t go trick or treating. I’m guessing I’m about 7 or so here because we were still in the Red House, and this was before my parents divorced. She told me something along the lines of, “I don’t send my kids out begging.” Could it have been her Mennonite upbringing? Could it have been because we lived way out in the country? Who knows, but it didn’t really bother me not to go. We ate popcorn and watched pseudo scary Disney’s like “The Canterbury Ghost” – boogity, boogity, BOO! – Kidding. Tell me if you remember that reference
4. One of these years when we didn’t trick or treat we went to the Jaycee’s Haunted Forest. OMG! That was SOOOO much fun. I won’t tell the story of one family member who got really, really scared. That is his, or er her, story. Hehehe.
5. I’m 11 years old. I have not yet moved out of Perquimans County but we had moved to the other side of the county so we were in a new school for the first time in my life. 6th grade. I can’t remember my friends name but I’m think it might have been Becky for some reason? I went to her house for Halloween and we dressed up as punk rockers with pink and green colored hair spray along with stir-up pants and long overly loud T-shirts. She lived far out in her part of the county so she knew everyone whose house we went to. We really didn’t get a lot of candy, but it was fun – well except for getting the hair spray out of our hair!
6. Now I’m guessing my next attempt was at 14. At least what I remember. We were settled into the new house with my Dad. We’d switched county’s and parents for a time! He lived in a fairly new subdivision. I decided I got to go again because I had to take my younger sisters. Right? I was a gypsy if I remember correctly. Which meant, wearing as many things as you could find. I didn’t ask for candy as the escort but most everyone gave me some. It is an interesting switch here to think how different the childhood each kid in a family has . . .
7. At some point during high school we set up to give out candy. My Dad’s neighborhood became a popular spot because it was such a large subdivision. You could park and then send your kids for a good trek finding lots and lots of candy. I did the gypsy thing again but at a card table in the driveway where I tried to spook you before you could get your candy. At least one year when we were doing this my boyfriend at the time would hide in the back of his CRX and walk up behind kids in his grim reaper costume. One girl was so upset we let her hit him as pay back. Oh and one of my brother Richard put a football under his NC State sweatshirt to become Quasimodo. That was funny!
8. My first college dorm was in one of the high rises at UNCG, Grogan. I was up on the 6th floor. I remember helping decorate the hall. My favorite part was putting eyes on the elevator so when it opened and closed you saw them. Hehe. They brought kids around to get candy from us. I enjoyed that a lot.
9. When I switched dorms we actually had door decorating contests. I still think the door my room mate and I did should have won something! We made it look like a window with curtains and all and you could look out onto a witch flying by etc.
10. And this year I am being Bah humbug for Halloween. I have given out candy on quite a few years but this year with a cat who likes to run for the door and a door that sticks a bit because we had to install a new door jam. Also, I am a bit turned off by it now, I think. I used to decorate and really enjoy it but so many of the kids who came up were teenagers not even in costumes who just grabbed at the candy. They kind of take some of the fun out of it. At least dress up! Maybe some Ikea shopping tonight instead? Hmmm

So maybe I haven’t really learned how to celebrate Halloween well. I never Trick or Treated much. I rarely dressed up, especially not at school or work where at most I’d wear something black. But, I love seeing the kids out having a good time, to go to the Mall and watch the clever costumes they come up with. Oh and the pictures to come in from my cousins and siblings as they show their kids and what they wanted to try and be for one night on this year.

Have a great Halloween everyone!