Thread: Parents & Family

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Were your parents & family into Halloween and trick or treating or are you a rebel/freak LOL who found the holiday on your own?

I'd love to hear our stories!

I never really understood why I love Halloween so much? ever since I can remember, I have just been crazy about it.

I have to say, the closest reason I could ever come close to coming up with was the memories I had with my dad at Halloween. He loved spending time with me and my brother making costumes, planning the decorating and teaching me how to make a scarecrow out of old clothes and a graveyard fence out of scrap wood. That was the first time he ever let me use power tools!

So for us, Halloween was much more then a holiday!

Growing up my family always celebrated Halloween. Well, my mom celebrated and my dad was just kinda... there. Only one year, when I was about 11 years old, my mom went all out decorating the outside. But the decorations were usually just inside. My birthday is in October, so my parties usually had a Halloween theme. Although I grew up celebrating, I think the obsession formed on its own lol. Because no one in my family is as nuts for holiday as I am.

My family wasn't into Halloween but my dad loved a good spooky movie.. The House on Haunted Hill", "Dr. Fibes".. Anything with Boris Karloff or Vincent Price.. Ahhhh.. the memories.. I'm sure that's what triggered my interest in all things spooky and so, a Halloween freak was formed..

When I was little our family had small Halloween parties, carved pumpkins and took us kids toting. Now my parents, siblings and myself still get together to carve pumpkins a few days before or on the date but thats it. A few weeks ago when i found an old photo of me gleefully pulling out a huge squishy handful of pumpkin guts in a garage with a winter coat on I decided that must have been when i got hooked. And then eventually when I was too old to tot I started setting up haunts on my own... maybe it's a combo of both nature and nurture (: mwa ha ha

Parents were typical - would buy the costume-in-a-box with the mask and the plastic apron screenprinted with the character. I was allowed out TOTing alone (with friends) about 7 years old... no other real influence from that direction. Honestly, I can't even remember them checking out my candy. I lived in a smallish town, tho.

They had NO interest in horror, supernatural, or anything along those lines.

I loved Halloween, but didn't get back into it (other than putting out a JoL) until I got to college.

I am lucky that my spouse is also a bit of a Halloween nut, and since we got married, we have been upping the decor and having lots of fun.

Since my birthday is very close to Halloween, I grew up with some pretty fun and entertaining birthday parties. We would carve pumpkins, play games, decorate, and even go trick-or-treating a few years. (Imean, we went trick-or-treating every year, but sometimes it would be a part of my birthday party)

So, my family started me on the road to celebrating Halloween and it just grew and grew. Now I have my own family and I've taken it to an entirely new level -- way more than my folks ever did, but I'm hoping my girls may continue the tradition.

Growing up,I was always the one in the family in charge of decorating and passing out candy. My brothers/sister know I am big into it now but I don't think any of them are. A couple of years ago one of my brothers died and there were lots of pics of his yard and decor on halloween but he never mentioned his love for it to me in all these years

My mother got me into it at a young age, decorating, making costumes for me to wear (I was never anything particularly 'cute', something that continues to this day), and having children from school over for a Halloween party/haunted house. My father never really bothered much, and even less so now. I'm easily the most into it of my family.

My mom was my influence. She always dressed up as a good witch, Elvira and a vampiress for Halloween when I was young! She took me to all the scary R rated movies at a very early age that threw me into this morbid wonderful world of haunting!! She would decorate every October 1st with wall art, pumpkins, skeletons, orange and black curtains, carpets, table cloths with black lace draped everywhere! It was cool! Then we would play Disney's haunted sounds 12" record all night on Halloween! Very good memories! My dad hated scary movies??? He didn't like to decorate for crud... And he would only hand out candy to the kids to get a few laughs... But over the years I have warped him into shape a bit! He now loves coming over and leading my TOT's(victims) into my morbid web of haunted pleasure! Haha, that is great!

But I have been actively haunting since 1990(my Junior yr in HS). I thought I was too cool to dress up anymore and started making startling traps and plastic bag mazes. Made my first tombstone in 90' out of old refrigerator packaging. I then sprayed it with a can of spray paint and the rest is history... Lol!