Each year, I tend to drag my feet and ho and hum about Halloween. I used to really get into the holiday, and the last few years… I’m not sure what it is. It’s been harder to get excited by it. I used to love it, and it’s been difficult to recapture that sense of wonder.
It tends to pop back up the night before Halloween, which is good and bad.
Liz reminded me that we were not going for distance here, which took some adjusting for me, mentally. Ultimately, the snag made the candy delivery easier for the children. And I guess this whole thing is about them. I guess.
We’ve had this bag of leftover Halloween candy in the kitchen. Originally, it was going to go to Liz’s office, but I think we both got lazy and it’s just been sitting here… open. And we’ll inevitably walk by and grab a little something out of it.
But for me, I’ve been grabbing everything except the Snickers bars. Because I just don’t care for them. The result of this natural selection is that gradually, this thing has turned into one ginormous bag of Snickers.
We got glasses of chai, glasses of hot cider, there was chili available, and we also got cookies! And at one point, my neighbor Mark came over with a bottle of scotch (and some plastic shot glasses in his pocket).
Not a lot of photos to share, this Halloween. With Liz under the weather, she only manned the door a few times over the course of the night. Since she didn’t want to risk being outside too much (still recovering from the flu), I ended up doing a lot of the door greeting and handing out of candy.
One of these years, I’m going to get the spirit back again. And I’m either going to dress up, or we’re going to decorate the house up. In the weeks leading up to the 31st, I never feel like it – but the actual evening of Halloween, I feel the bug.
Once again this year, we gave out candy at our house for Halloween. And then around 7:30PM (before the event officially ended), we made our way to Harper Avenue for their annual display of Halloween awesomeness.
When it got to be around 7:30 PM, Liz suggested that we go and check out Harper Avenue – a certain block in Hyde Park that is really well known for their extravagant displays every Halloween and is pretty much the place to go in our area.
We ended up walking from the house over to Francesca’s. And on our way… we passed by a house that was totally ready for Halloween.
Last night, Liz and I trekked to Merrillville, IN, to celebrate Julie’s birthday with a surprise dinner. We left the city earlier than normal, to try to beat the rush-hour traffic, and ended up making great time. We arrived about an hour ahead of schedule, so we hit a nearby Meijer to do some shopping.
I’m sad that I won’t be dressing up this Halloween (due to travelling and being out of town). I didn’t think I’d miss it all that much, but seeing this great costume/prank by magician Rich Ferguson really makes me wish I had another themed/interactive costume to wear this year.
Dan Rosenfeld (aka Guru Ramen) made a pretty spectacular costume for Halloween. Using a shoulder-mounted harness, he jerry-rigged a combination of a 24″ LCD, video camera, mirror, microphone, video camera (pointing outward) and an additional, internal LCD screen.
We did end up having a few folks at the office dress up for Halloween, which was always a great thing to see. I was talking with AJ in the weeks leading up to Halloween, and was figuring it would just be the two of us in costume. When I arrived, I was happy to see a few more folks in costume:
This year, I decided to go with a simpler Halloween costume. I’m not sure how many of you have seen this already, but my idea is based off a random, animated .gif: a serial killer, cleaning off his car. I love the pausing and the looks the guy gives, and hopefully I’ll cause a fair amount of stares as I’m going to/from work.
With Halloween fast approaching, I’ve been seeing a small jump in traffic due to people linking to my old Operation costume (a working costume modeled after the board game).
Each year, whenever Halloween comes around… I get nervous, and tend to overplan or overthink my costumes. I have a tendency to want to do something grandiose for a costume. Couple that with a bit of procrastination, and well… it get silly. Sometimes I think my plans for Halloween work really well. Othertimes, I work things up so much in my head – I end up not dressing up for Halloween at all. Which is a terrible outcome.