Let's be the Halloween of your childhood!

I am decorating our trick-or-treat bags (supermarket brown paper bags) with crayons.

I always drew a big Jack O' Lantern driving a classic car.

I am the spidery branches of the trees in our neighborhood, suddenly colorless and ghost-like.

I am the piles of still-bright leaves in the sidewalks and gutters.

I rustle, above and below.

Op did you grow up in a witchcraft cult. Halloween Eve never matched the anticipation of Christmas.

I'm the bag of purple balloons, some safety pins, and my sister's black dance leotard for the bunch of grapes costume.

I'm my pillow case, used to collect candy. I'd never use some bag or decorative thing.

I’m the bags of artificial cobwebs. It was so fun to stretch them out and decorate the porch.

I'm a bag of the inedible Halloween candy sold by the local Lions Club that my father always bought for us from his friends. I'll wind up being placed quietly in the trash can never having been opened or a single treat being eaten. I

I'm the rain. 😢

My friends and I could trick or treat longer because we are Catholic and had the next day off because it was a Holy Day.

I’m the orange UNICEF Boxes. Some of us weren’t turned in.

I'm the eyeroll I'd give to the other kids for being less creative, wearing those plastic masks with elastic bands from K-Mart.

Halloween is actually one of my very first real memories. I was just a little over 2-years old, and my parents were going to let me go trick or treating to several houses on the block with my two older sisters.

They'd dressed me in a little red devil's outfit. It had a cape and cowl combo with little horns that stuck out. It also had a very long tail. I was so excited!

Anyway, we got to the front gate of the yard, and it slammed shut on my tail, ripping it off the body suit. I was so upset I started to cry .. LOUDLY. The whole thing was quite traumatic. I was devastated.

My mom brought me back to the front porch and tried to reattach the tail with four large safety pins.

The rest of the evening I kept looking back at it thinking how shitty it looked.

I’m the It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown television special that we would watch after finishing up our trick or treating. Most years, our town would schedule trick or treating to end about 30 minutes before the special came on. This gave just enough time to get home and check your candy for dangers before setting down with a big pile of it to eat while watching the show.

I’m the good candy like Reese cups and mini snickers bars that dad said were “poisoned” so HE had to eat them.

He wasn’t fooling anyone.

We’re the cardboard, jointed skeletons and witches that were once considered elaborate decorations.

Someone giving out apples as the treat instead of candy. yuck

No one giving out apples because they didn't want people thinking there might be razor blades in them, so they'd just throw them away.

Guess what? We were already throwing them away before that.

I'm the chime that told you to turn the page in the It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown book on record. .

I’m a Kooky Spook

I’m the costumes hidden under puffy jackets.

I'm the plastic Barnabas Collins vampire fangs that broke, even if I didn't dress as a vampire I wore them.

I'm the little milk carton to collect money for UNICEF.

I'm the bad kids, engaged in skitching.

I am the old lady down the street who always got really into dressing as a witch at a candle covered table in her yard with the best homemade treats.

I am Teacake, eating shit.

I am the construction paper black cat silhouette stapled over top of a construction paper yellow moon stapled to the school bulletin board outside the lunch room. I am next to the stapled mimeographed special menu with items like “Ghoul-ash,” “Franken-franks” & “Boo-berry Crumble.”

I am the enormous plastic tarantula that your dad won't stop fucking throwing at you.

Iam the "spookhouse" at school made of carboard boxes you had to crawl through.

1970- I'm the little kid crying because the strap on my plastic Frankenstein mask broke. This was the cheap costume that came in a box with a plastic mask and plastic outfit.

1978- Along with my best friend, I'm a two-headed, three-legged monster that our parents made out of two pairs of old shirts and pants sewn together that immediately ripped apart when two older boys came up behind us and stole our candy bags. The night wasn't a total bust because we came home, had hot chocolate and watched DL favorite Elaine Joyce on the ChiPs Halloween episode.

R3 I'm not the OP, nor a witch in a coven, but the night before Halloween was (in the area I grew up) 'mischief night'. That was the night to worry about, although, I never partook in that, it's always been my favorite holiday.

We called that Mat Night, r28, presumably in reference to stolen doormats.

I’m R3, handing out Jack Chick tracts to the kids instead of candy.

I am my sister wearing a Hardy Har Har costume and getting hit by a Jeep.

I am the local disc jockey handing out demo 45s because I am too cheap to buy candy

I'm the real snake in the snake charmer costume bag freaking out the neighbor ladies.

I'm the 25-year old doper who takes his tarantula tank out on the front porch for all the kids to gawp at. He picks up Charlotte and lets the braver kids pet her. Samantha is too skittish.

I'm the old Victorian mansion at the end of a string of gigantic older and ornate houses. Although I look as if I'd be magical lit up for Halloween, I never am, and the bitter old man who lives there turns off all the lights that night. You vaguely resent him for this all year.

Years later, when you are back the first summer from college, he asks your parents if you could help him clean out his garage for twenty bucks and they press you into doing it.

He turns out to be a mild-mannered well-read gentleman living with some obvious severe physical and mental damage from WWII. He hands you a hundred dollar bill when you're done and says "don't tell your father."

I'm the fire waiting at home in the Franklin stove with hot cider and popcorn to go with it.

I’m the Paul Lynde Halloween Special, featuring Margaret Hamilton and KISS!

I’m the half-blind sweet old lady who gave my little brother a hug on her doorstep, not realizing until too late that he was absolutely covered in shaving cream.

This was back when parents didn’t helicopter, and kids would be roving out on their own, getting up to varying degrees of tame and feral mischief.

I'm the freedom of being out on a school night.

I’m my grandparents’ lovely next-door neighbors who filled waxed goodie bags (similar to bakery bags) with Halloween designs for the kids they knew personally.

“Come on in, (my name), I have something special for you!”

It was always my first stop, and I can still see the light in their living room as the sun was setting.

The neighbors and my grandparents have all been gone for decades. Sigh…

I'm the "Harvest Party" my religious parents made me attend, because Halloween is the devil's holiday!

I'm the big red wax lips.

Apparently you can chew me like gum.

Blech.

I’m the razor blade in the apple that you got from you can’t remember where that cut your mouth all up to shit and made you scream bloody murder!

What the tricks gave me turned out not to be treats.

Razor blades in apples, well that was the urban myth.

I had a job in HS that gave me a lot of access to good seamstresses, one year I had a custom fairy costume, and the night of the Halloween party I was wearing it to, I didn't notice I'd set my wings on fire for a second from a poorly placed candle.

Good times!

I'm the burnt cork Dad used to decorate our faces with fake mustaches and beards.

I'm the rare Halloween when you got to out two nights in a row.

I am my childhood belief that this is the one night that ghosts do exist, regardless of Velma's opinion of the subject.

I’m the miniature boxes of raisins that the Hungarian piano teacher lady down the street handed out.

I'm the Monster mania showing Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man back to back Halloween night with the goofy local guy dressed as a Ghoul as the Host.

I'm the singular treat you got one year that you remember even now.

One year I was a homemade candy apple with an orange ribbon tied around the cellophane .

Another year I was a little toy dump truck with working headlights. There was some penny candy in the hamper.

Still another year, a box of Crayola crayons with an Almond Joy taped to it.

And one year fresh-made doughnuts served to the kids and parents alike, with mill cider to go with it.

I am the pillow case you used as a Halloween candy bag.

OP, ok. I’ll post my Halloween experience circa 1974, along with another persons, on Halloween night, in a separate thread.

[quote]Op did you grow up in a witchcraft cult. Halloween Eve never matched the anticipation of Christmas.

Not OP, but lots of kids from poor or dysfunctional families had more fun during Halloween than Xmas because (1) it was a way to escape reality for a day, and (2) you got treats by going door-to-door.

I’m the snowsuit worn under the Halloween costume.

I am the annual viewing of Disney's version of The Legend of Sleepy Hallow, broadcast on the Disney Channel.

One of the greatest of the classical animation era and a perfect blend of funny and genuinely scary, with Bing Crosby delivering the most ironic self-satire in the history of Hollywood.

It's also the only Disney film where every single character is an irredeemable asshole.

The fact that we actually lived in Sleepy Hallow was just a cherry on the cake.

R55, yes.

I was unsure why R4 responded as they did and realized that my OP could seem strange.

We had a creative role in Halloween in creating our costumes.

We were allowed to go out as late as we wanted, curfew excepted. Our mom went with us but said we could trick-or-treat as long as we wanted.

Christmas was of course great, but we had no hand in it.

I'm the go-to hobo costume, no longer appropriate today

I'm all the shitty candy no kid ever wants!

I'm the glued on used coffee grounds for the hobo beard.

Just imagine the tales that will come from the 'Trunk or Treat's that are now the norm for kids. "Wow! What a scary trunk!! There's dry ice!"

I preferred getting chased by the fathers on my street,(one was in costume as a werewolf, and another neighbor a chainsaw wielding maniac), having fun scaring us kids. I was lucky to have a LOT of other kids on my road (dead end) as it made for more fun.

My grandmother gave out full ziplock sandwich bags FILLED with mini chocolate bars, tootsiepops, sweet tarts, etc. Two bags from her and Trick or Treating was pointless. (I've mentioned her before bc she was seriously HARD-CORE when it came to candy.

I'm those awful caramel apples that grown-ups worked so hard on and were a such a mess to eat.

I'm the bowls of eyeballs (grapes) and brains (noodles) in my neighbor's garage haunted house.

I'm the sugary liquid in the tiny wax coke bottles that seemed more wax than liquid and, in retrospect, were a waste of time eating.

I’m the cheap jumpsuit costume with a screen-printed illustration of what thing I’m supposed to be. The matching plastic mask has a rubber band that immediately breaks when you put it on. According to my cellophane box, I’m “flame retarded.”

My mom would have a Halloween party for all my friends. Turn off the lights and she'd hand us grapes under the table and tell us they were eyeballs; spaghetti was veins; cauliflower was brains. We knew what everything was but screamed anyway.

I’m the giant bag or pillowcase being flipped upside down spilling all the collected treasure loot out onto the kitchen table and inhaling all that wonderful childhood memory of the beautiful smells of chocolate and other candy treats—and the parents start weeding through and swiping their favorites and the kids trying to head them off to there first. 👻 😎 🎃

R35 that’s such a sweet story.

I’m the absolute exhilaration of running around the neighborhood in the dark, the air filled with the smell of fallen leaves and shaving cream.

I don’t get it. In the 60s you had a dime store costume with a mask on elastic string and a paper bag you went around with. It wasn’t some big deal like Thanksgiving or Christmas with weeks of decor. All littler holidays have become excuses for grown up parties and drinking.

I’m the aerosol top from a can of Lysol, stolen to replace the spray button on the can of Barbisol to make it shoot farther. The little goblins never remember to return me.

R71, speak for yourself.

b. 1971 and Halloween was a very special night.

I'm a Kraft™️ caramel

I'm the circus peanuts!!!

I’m the Good N Plenties that make your treat bag smell like black licorice 😈

R71 - my Trick or Treating years were 68 - 74, and yes the dime-store boxed costumes were simple, the masks usually broke, most houses had nothing more elaborate than printed cardboard decorations taped to the storm door glass, and it was a completely day for children, not boozy adults — but my god it was fun.

Even when the elastic string on your molded plastic mask didn’t break, the sharp edges around your eyes and the little spit collecting slit in front of your moth quickly made it so annoying you soon moved it to the top of your head.

I'm the Good N Plenty that was neither.

For everyone bashing Halloween, I’m going to paraphrase a quote going around about it.

I’m sure someone will have the exact wording, but it’s something like this -

Halloween is that one day of the year when strangers come to us, some broken and hunchbacked, some grotesque and frightening, some silly or clever and we welcome them. We tell them how good they look and give them good things to eat. We should be like this every day.

I'm the shitty homemade robot costume that I refused to wear: a cardboard box spray-painted silver.

I am the 13 million kids who probably dressed as KISS for Halloween between 1976 and 1981.

^ My brother was Gene Simmons and I was Paul Stanley (at four years old).

R57, yes, Disney’s Sleepy Hollow terrified me as a kid.

Disney used to air that annually on one of the big three networks, along with some other Halloween-themed animation. I think there was something with Donald Duck’s nephews going trick-or-treating. There was also a montage of scary scenes set to “Bad Moon Rising.” This would have been around 1987.

Now I show the Disney Sleepy Hollow to my 8th graders every year. It’s fairly faithful to the original text. I’m looking forward to Thursday!

I'm the wild '60's kids costumes @ 1:55.

Link

I'm dressed as a hippie.

My BFF and I went as Sonny and Cher one year.

I, of course, was Sonny.

I'm Halloween in the mid 60's when we had to have Trick or Treat on a Sunday during daylight hours because a Strangler was going around killing women in Cincinnati. It was just not the same, and one of our parents was accompanying us.

I’m the pieces of smashed pumpkin found in the streets on November 1st.

I'm the smug little Catholic trick-or-treater whose public-school-going friends have to go to school the next day, but I don't, since Nov. 1 is All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation for Catholics, and my parochial school will be closed.

On the the other hand, I'll have to go to Mass tomorrow, but I won't be bringing home any homework!

I'm the fact that when I was a kid if you were past 8th grade you didn't really celebrate.

I’m the full size and king size candy bars they give out in the rich kids’ neighborhood.

I'm po'. My costume is a paper bag with eye hole cut out.

R94, couldn't afford two eyeholes?

Was Halloween the only day you ate?

R95 You can’t eat rocks.

I'm the Ford Windstar that pulls up in the good neighborhood and lets out a bunch of poor kids and one adult. Hopefully I don't get towed.

I’m the little boy in the small town whose mother insisted on dressing up as a (female) cheerleader, “sexy” nun, school teacher, Wonder Woman, and other over-the-top, makeup and wig characters every year. No wonder he turned out gay, but without any interest in cross dressing.

I'm the take one only sign.

Picture it 1969, Southern California I was in 3rd grade and managed to get my hands on that dime store Spider Man customer with the plastic face mask and my brother, a year older was Superman. We were the same height so we looked like a matched set.

Up and down the streets we went, far and wide, high and low and within a couple hours we both filled our pillowcases.

While sorting our candy we got the brilliant idea to go out trick-or-treating again by switching costumes. No one would never know! It wasn't until years later when I realized that the neighbor just saw the same two kids. We thought we were so smart.

I'm the house with the elaborate Halloween decorations, but on beggars night, the lights are off and no one is seemingly home. My owners don't want to be bothered with candy and kids.

I’m the rich part of town mentioned upthread. I’m where all the doctors and dentists live. You come to me if you want fresh fruit or travel size toothpaste instead of candy.

I’m also the townhouses in the not-so rich part of town that you hit when you want to maximize your trick or treating efficiency. You’ll get real candy from us. None of that apple and toothpaste bullshit.

I'm my dad making sure the lights are all out.

[quote]I'm the take one only sign

I’m the empty bucket below.

Halloween was huge for me. My parents and three older siblings emigrated from No. Ireland in the 60s and embraced Halloween wholeheartedly by the time my sister and I were born. My mom would make grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner and then help us with our costumes. My dad would take us out with a couple of other neighbor dads along with all the other kids on our block who’s dads weren’t able to (a couple of divorced families but mostly dads working). They would stay a good distance behind us and let us have fun but were there to keep us safe. My mom and oldest sister stayed home to give out candy.

We were usually out between 6-8 and covered a lot of ground, filling up our pillowcases. My mom would make us wash up when we got home and she and dad would inspect our candy (and swipe a few for themselves) and then us kids would start trading. We always made a pile for my sister who was too old to go trick or treating. My Halloween candy used to last until Christmas.

It was such a great holiday and 100 percent kid focused.

In my 20s living in NYC, I enjoyed the parade and parties for about a decade but now don’t do anything for Halloween. Kids don’t trick or treat anymore where I live now. I feel bad that they are missing out on something that was so much fun.

Quite a number of years ago, i would go to my parent’s house for Halloween to hand out candy.

I lived in a condo and nobody ever came by. So I would go to their house in the suburbs, dress up and hand out candy. They didn’t get a lot of kids, either, but it was fun.

One year, when I was in my late 30s, I painted my face all up like a skull, and wore all black with a black hooded robe. I looked pretty scary, honestly. I was handing out candy and my dad said, “go over to Benny’s and knock on the door. See if he gives you some candy. I’m tired of eating this stuff your mom got.”

So I did. He didn’t even know who I was. Then I got to thinking - what would happen if I just went to every house? Nobody knows how old I am with this makeup on and my robe. I’m pretty petite, so I thought “what the hell? Lemme take some of OUR candy and see if I can swap it for something else.”

Let me tell you, that was one of the BEST TIMES I ever had! I walked the next block over and it was packed! I was swapping candy, getting candy (yes, I went trick or treating) and handing out some candy to tired moms.

There were parents following packs of kids. Some of the parents handing out candy were also refilling beers on the down low.

Well, I just could resist hiding in the bushes just once and jumping out at a pack of tipsy moms! They screamed, I laughed hysterically and ran off.

On my way home, one of those moms jumped out of a bush and scared the crap outta ME as the rest of them laughed.

I came home with a pillowcase full of candy - despite handing a lot of it out! My dad's eyes lit up when I dumped it out in the floor, but my mom was appalled at my deception.

I'm the scarecrow on the front door of our house that delighted me when I got off the school bus.

I'm the arts and crafts projects we did at school in anticipation. The class Halloween party. The not homework on Halloween if it fell on a school night. The pillow case filled with candy. I loved it as a kid and still do.

I'm the lady who gave out dental floss and mini tubes of Crest and Gleem who had instead of a pumpkin, a drawing of a large tooth with cavities. She was on the BOE of the local elementary school and obviously, had no kids.

Circa 1971 - This particular witch decoration frightened me so much I wouldn’t go up to the houses that had it on their door!

I’m the popcorn balls.

I'm the loose candycorn in a paper napkin given out by more than one elderly women.

I’m the cyanide-laced Pixie Stix that killed Halloween in 1974.

I'm Halloween III: Night of the Witch, the TV trailer for which scared me so badly that I was actually anxious about trick-or-treating that year.

Not even the theatrical trailer.

The TV trailer.

R111: popcorn "balls" YUM!

Happy Devil's Night one and all!

I think the Jaycee's sold these. Everyone had them.

Oh, Dear! Jaycees.

I'm the sparsely given Starburst duos. Two in a small piece of plastic, Im hard to come across, you're lucky to get more than 4 pairs, not like all the kit-kats everybody's drowning in.

I remember putting our pumpkin atop those silver box things where the Milk Man(!) would put our milk, very mid 60's.

I'm the neighborhood full of old Victorians and enormous trees.

I'm the idea I had at age five that the other children were somehow sprites hopping about between worlds.

I’m the freely given Reese’s peanut butter cups and Snickers before peanut allergies became widespread.

"what the fuck are you supposed to be?"

r117 omg those things were weird cheap and everywhere. they felt like awful to the touch. with it's course texture. Awful use of plastic. I haven't thought about those awful things since I was 5 yrs old.

I remember growing up and going to Catholic School in the '60s, that the nuns would always recommend we dress as our favorite saint and in lieu of candy we should hand out holy cards. I don't think anybody implemented up this idea.

R125 I remember Halloween decorations in my Catholic grade school, but no devil masks were allowed.

I’m the Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House, which was the soundtrack to Halloween

'm the Monster Mash.

I'm the annual reminder of how much your childhood was stolen by the religious nuts who raised you and didn't allow you to ever go trick or treating or have fun with the rest of the kids. I'm why you're a forever-bitter, socially inept weirdo, now.

I’m the porch decoration which includes dry ice in a cast iron Dutch oven and exotic [italic]white[/italic] pumpkins.

I’m the candy arranged neatly by type in a desk drawer. Somehow, I last a week.

[quote] Op did you grow up in a witchcraft cult. Halloween Eve never matched the anticipation of Christmas.

You don’t have to have grown up in a cult to not celebrate Christmas.

I am childhood OCD that I never overcame.

I saw Dorothy chasing Spiderman down the street last night!

I had a life sized unicorn on my front porch.

There was a mini Trump who was hilarious.

I put a goalie mask on my shar-pei and she always runs to the door first!

When I opened the screen door, Deadpool walked right in a struck a pose.

I love Halloween!