Thread: When & How Did You Find Your Obsession With Halloween

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When I was in elementary school, I checked out a book from the school library on how to decorate your house and have a party. I was so excited about it and remember making all sorts of plans, then for some reason, my Mom wouldn't let me do it. I was crushed!! I did dress up every year and go out TOT'ing until I was about 12...then I kinda went astray for many years. When my Son was born, I got back into it by making all of his costumes each year but never bothered decorating much or throwing parties. When he reached the age of wanting to do his "own" thing, (10yrs old) I started decorating and staying home to hand out candy. It all started with a trip to Michael's and finding this simple hanging bride & groom...that was 10 yrs ago and has now evolved into"what can I add next and where can I stumble across a good find mentality 365 days a year!

Here's a few more pics!

I really started to homehaunt in 2008. Were I live there's not much to do for halloween with out getting in any trouble so my friend and I would go to haunted houses. I loved the way they were set up, I loved the props and just the fact that people were having a good time getting scared. So that's how I got into hallwoeen.

I have been into Halloween every since I can remamber. I stopped TOT at 13 but beame obessed as I got older. Last year I went crazy decorating. Moving to a new house gives you so many new ideas and places to decorate. One of my favs from last was a stuffed wearwolf mask over the knob on the post at the bottom of our inside stairs. It was the first thing you saw when you came in out house.

I think it all really started when I moved to Florida when I was 8. Down here we don't really get Autumn so I guess I missed it so much that I began to crave everything to do with Autumn. Leaves, Pumpkins, Thanksgiving, and of course, Halloween. It wasn't until I was in middle school or highschool that I really started getting into everything.

I can't believe you guys stopped trick or treating at such young ages! I stopped when I was about 16 going on 17 and that's only because none of my friends wanted to go!

I bought a house two years ago. As Halloween started to roll around I was pumped. As a kid I remember the pure joy of the night. Then my neighbors told me that they would get 200 TOT's on a bad night and 300 + on a good night! Then the gears started turning ..... Did the first year on mine own. A dad from my martial arts school heard me talking about it and referred me to the forum and it snowballed from there!

It may have been my mother's excitement that initially got me into it. She was hard to reach sometimes but around certain holidays, she just went crazy (ETA: I mean in a good way!). That's not 100% it, though, because she went crazy on Christmas too but I don't have that same "excited" feel, exactly, about Christmas.

Anyway, my mom made all our costumes...she LOVED buying the candy and sitting with us for hours packing up one lollipop, one Necco Wafers and, I don't know, one stick of gum in each paper bag, then twisting it closed...we had soooooooooo many TOTers in our neighborhood, and it was such a fun night.

We always gave out the biggest treat bags and I loved the looks on the other kids' faces when I was home (on a break in between TOTing some more, LOL...we walked for HOURS). We often had something super-cool in the way of decorating. One year, for instance, my mom, who would never in a million years have called herself "an artist," created THE most beautiful silhouette-style Halloween scene, a whole entire outdoor scene with witches flying past the moon and a cemetery and cats and pumpkins and the whole nine yards, on the panels of glass in our front window. It was fascinating and amazing.

Even after we moved -- multiple times -- I loved the season of autumn so so much, and I appreciated more and more the spooky aspect of Halloween and how the temporary "death," or really sleep, of the plants and the leaves on the trees tied in so well with spirits having one last romp before the world closed up for winter and people stayed safely and warmly inside their houses.

I loved the harvest aspect of it, and I always loved going to the farm with my grandmother (this, again, from the time I can remember).

But from the time I was very little I also remember having this tiny little bit of respectful fear in the back of my mind...I knew I just HAD to light a Jack O'Lantern so that the bad ghosts would be confused and scared away from our house... :P stuff like that. I loved the origins of the holiday, I guess you'd say, or my understanding of them from probably the age of five onward.

It's perfect...it's a beautiful season, there's candy, you greet all the neighbors who perhaps you don't speak to on a regular basis during the year, so it's social, you get to be anything you want to be for just one night, there's a creepy/taboo aspect (you don't normally get to address such gory subjects!) that you're allowed to explore, it's chilly, it's nighttime...What's not to love?

What a wonderful post...

Originally Posted by HallowTeen

I can't believe you guys stopped trick or treating at such young ages! I stopped when I was about 16 going on 17 and that's only because none of my friends wanted to go!

I stopped at 10.

But I never stopped loving Halloween, even for a moment. I just thought trick-or-treating was for kids and I was getting too old for it. I grew up faster than most. Always was mature for my age.

I've always been into morbid and "creepy" things, and that's what my love of Halloween comes down to. There was no particular moment or time in my life when I started loving it. I always have. All my life I've been the Spider Queen . . . or Spider Princess when I was younger, I suppose. Even royals were little kids at one point! I've been interested in the paranormal from a very young age. When I grew up a little I started getting into "gothic" fashion, not in the typical angsty teenager way but because it just appeals to my dark nature, and because it can be very classy when done well. I like the Halloween season because, for a month or two, other people are into the same things I am, which means they're more accessible. I love when all the stores are selling things with spiders on them, and DVD's about ghosts and hauntings go on sale. This stuff is just in my blood.

For as long as i can remember as well, i loved dressing up when i was little and my mom had a few decorations, my love for everything spooky spawned from that. I stopped going out TOT when i was 16.Growing up nearly everything i got involving halloween came from dollar stores and thrift stores. I'm moving out soon and im superrr excited to decorate my place for halloween for the first timee=)