Thread: What is the one thing that influenced you to become a Halloween enthusiast?

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For me, the Monster Mash and the whole original Bobby "Boris" Pickett "Monster Mash" album is probably the reason I love Halloween so much. I still know every word to every song on the album. Who wouldn't love "Me and My Mummy," Blood Bank Blues," Graveyard Shift," etc.? The Monster Mash came out when I was a kid and it has been a part of my haunting side since then. I wore out the original vinyl album and have two more newer versions on vinyl.

I was fortunate enough to meet Bobby "Boris" Pickett a few years ago and I now have a personally autographed copy of the Monster Mash album on CD. I was saddened when he passed away not too long ago. That autographed CD is one of my prized Halloween possessions.

To me, the Monster Mash, made Halloween seem cool. The rest is history.

My first visit to Disney's Haunted Mansion was also influential, but the Monster Mash was the first major influence for me.

What was the one influence that turned you into the Halloween Enthusiast you have become?

Eric

Couldn't win the Christmas lights contest

Growing up in a Missionary Baptist church i was taught evil was bad... there was no fun evil.. Halloween was bad, blah blah.. my mom always dressed up every year for school, totally embarrassing costumes i thought then.. however now i do the same thing.. HA.. The traditional candy was given, the pumpkins carved.. that was it though....

My teenage years... i started wearing black... color striped hair, people worried, small town, you know.. town kids just didnt do this... i was marked then as... different... my love started when i was told i couldnt be this way, i couldnt love halloween, i couldnt beleive in Magic, ghosts, or Ouija boards. I Never joined the church so i couldnt be kicked out.. but for ever, ive known i wasnt like everyone else around here. LOL

Now, i am considered a weird and hilarious grown up (to the kids), The adults around here just shake their heads at me as my kids think im totally awesome..(my ex thinks im a witch cause i pointed my finger at him and his truck motor blew up... honestly.. im NOT a witch)

My decorating gets more elaborate each year and the more people worry, the more fun it is.. SPITE i guess???? FUN.... and... EXCITEMENT!!!

STRESS. It is an escape from it. Gives me something else to focus on besides worrying continually about stuff.
I like it because it also doesn't matter if things aren't perfect and that is a nice change too.

For me it was Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. I looked forward to the night it was on every year. I tried explaining to my kids that if you werent home when it was on you had to wait a WHOLE YEAR to see it. They cant grasp that concept being they can just walk into the other room and grab the dvd and watch it any time they want..It has become tradition at our house to watch it first to kick off the Halloween season.

We had a halloween party almost every year when I was a kid, which I have to admit is unusual in the UK.

I always liked dressing up anyway.. and then I became a pagan when I was in my late teens and it became a proper holiday to me..

My birthday is exactly one week after Halloween. I always considered TOT the highlight of my birthday week.

Art/theater geek all through school. Attracted to the weird/dark side of things.

Seemed a natural progression. I don't remember EXACTLY what it was, but it's definitely taken off since I've been a adult.

My inspiration for Halloween came from the Brigantine Castle as a young kid. It was a haunted castle on an amusement pier that was multiple stories high. It was very ominous looking sitting out there over the ocean. The inside was very well done and had a lot cool prop stuff including live actors.

I was devastated when the pier closed down, but even more so when the castle burnt down a little while afterward.

My love of Halloween has been passed to my daughters and they help out with everything now.

However, I wish I had a permanent residence so I could build all of the props I see on the forum and other sites. But moving every three years w/ the military and my weight limits doesn't make it feasible. We have fun and decorate the best we can every year (even overseas in Asia).

Did I mention we have more Halloween decorations than Christmas? LOL!

Childhood memory.

Getting picked up from school by my mother that cold october evening, it already going dark, and her taking me for a costume. Which back in the early 90s were your cheap plastic masks, witches/vampire black plastic capes, plastic fang teeth and small bottle of fake blood.

Then going TOT'ing that night and the cold briskness and that autumny smell with everyone in the street outside and dressed up.

That kind of thing only happens once a year, and now i make sure to live it fully and share the joy.

Fond childhood memories of Halloween have made it an important holiday for me.