I am a sucker for Halloween.
I love it all. The imagination. The pageantry. The spookiness. The candy.
The creep-tastic vintage posters.
It's one of the few holidays that gets people outside, and certainly the only one during cold weather. It's chilly and dark. Pumpkins are lit, grinning and leering and snarling and winking. White trash-bag ghosts flutters from trees, their Sharpie-d eyes and mouths forming surprised Ooooos. Witches and black cats perch on windowsills, paper skeletons taped to the front door stand guard.
Love her outfit. No, really.
It's pretty much the only just because holiday.
Thanksgiving is devoted to family and feasting. Christmas is devoted to Jesus, shopping, family, and feasting. Valentine's Day is devoted to your honey, or to your bottle of wine a la Bridget Jones. Memorial Day and the Fourth and Labor Day and Veterans Day are all great holidays, but aside from fireworks and parades, you don't do much for them. The big holidays are sometimes a lot of work, and the little ones sometimes aren't much fun.
Halloween is FUN. Just because.
You don't believe in the Great Pumpkin?
Despite invitations to some sure-to-be-epic Halloween parties, Kyle and I are likely staying at home for Halloween weekend this year. My premature blood and gore scarefest at the hospital has left me with a curious case of anemia for the foreseeable future, and I am feeling it -- I get tired easily. So really, 8 hours of heavy drinking and very little sleep probably isn't in the best plan.
If you thought I was an old lady before, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Kyle surprised me one day before I'd applied my makeup...
But don't think we won't be getting into the Halloween spirit. We bought two pumpkins over the weekend, and they will be suitably carved and illuminated. I think the city of Pittsburgh's Trick-or-Treating is officially next Monday night from 5:30 to 7:30, but in case any ghosts or goblins show up early, I will have a bowl of candy ready (I'm thinking Twix and Tootsie pops, because those were always two of my favorites). I am going to dress up as a black cat - black leggings, a black sweater, a headband with black carboard ears glued on, and some creatively applied makeup.
Sounds like a pretty wild time, right?
I hope our neighborhood has a nice family turnout, because with Mt. Washington it could go either way. Either you open the door to find charming little Yinzers, or you open it to find degenerate drunks. Perhaps I will wear my pointy hat too, just to ward off ne'er-do-wells. If that fails, this beast will protect me.
Fearsome.
Or this one will...
This was a one-day phenomenon.
I have my eclectic Halloween CD ready, with a mix of Michael Jackson, Avenged Sevenfold, whoever sang "Ghostbusters," and this gem...
Kyle cannot WAIT.