Thread: Halloween Memories....

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It seems like every year around this time I share such stories with friends and family about past Halloween memories of past years and or decades, and I was wondering what nostalgic memories everyone else has on the forums and if we share the same memories to some extent...

For me first and foremost is the thrill of taking your costume to school, Halloween for me as a tyke would have been mid to late 80's early 90's...I used to buy those costumes that came with a plastic mask (rubber band on them) and could and would rip easy...however those were the IN costumes to have...being around all of your peers getting candy, enjoying Halloween themes all around school, getting candy and waiting to go home to trick or treat...

Getting back into Halloween some years back and finding this forum, helped trigger those memories and made me realize how fun Halloween is and I am reliving my child hood to some extent...noticing and appreciating the decorated houses around town, the different events...

But I remember one Halloween when I was young, it seemed my brothers and I went out for HOURS and got garbage loads of candies, it must have been very late 80's because I believe i was either Jason or Freedy that year, instead of the usual Transformer or He-Man etc....I remember getting the you know what scared out of us, as there were more haunts around that time and people would do the old play dead in the chair trick and as a kid you would think it was a dummy and go for the candy, and the person jumped at as and we ran...lol...

Here in Canada another memory I have is there was always a group of people who would rent out vacant store lots in a local strip mall and put on a haunted maze...the strobe lights would be used to attract people and you would see people in costumes hanging around the front...as a kid and as someone who LOVED and still loves Halloween I was naturally drawn to it but don't think I was ever allowed to go in...

I could ramble on but most would get bored, if you haven't got bored reading this already lol....but I thought it would be fun to dig up the past...no pun intended on dig lol....

But yeah in closing, I would love to read everyone's stories...I have more I can share but maybe later as I want to read other stories first...

LOL good stuff...I remember getting freddy costumes etc that were much better then the plastic ones and cost a lot more...I only bought those plastic ones in my younger days, as I got older I became more creative and even used clothing around the house to create a costume or two...however that only happened once or twice....all of the other Halloweens I purchased costumes....

Here in Canada one thing that I remember vividly from my youth is how much pride people took into decorating their houses and it would show, from the scary houses to the colourful Halloween themes etc...its coming back now but not as good as it used to be....

I remember mostly my mother was the person that did mine and my sister's costumes. We never brought our from the store. But I also remember the most is how everyone was always renting a costumes for a Halloween Party or some kind of event. Mom was the person to be counted on. She had almost everything, if not she would work it out how to put one together. Then there was Halloween Party for the Baton corp, rasing money for this and that. So I grew up having Halloween in my heart.

I remember "The House To Trick Or Treat" You all recall that house in your town its the one that scared you but had really good candy at it. I remember walking into the covered porch and there were scarecrows laying all over along with pumpkins and ghosts. I recall getting close to the door almost able to touch it when a scare crow jumped up and screamed making me nearly pee my pants.

Later I worked at that house when I was a teen as a scarecrow to keep the tradition going. Now I strive to be that house. I want kids to look back in 20yrs and remember how amazing one experience in their Halloween Past was. I want them to drive by my house as an adult and recall when they use to trick or treat there.

Other memories I am currently re-living as I found an old VHS tape of 1980s Halloween Specials I recorded in my storage. I have been watching them along with all the awesome 80's commercials. Those TV shows are a big part of my Halloween Past and I love them.

Gris when you mentioned TV shows, oh yeah does that ever strike a cord....I remember waiting for my favorite shows to air their Halloween specials...you are luck yo have them recorded...I bet I do but to lazy to look haha...

First memory that comes to mind this second is visiting a garage haunt made by friends of my aunt & uncle back when I was around 6 or 7. If I knew those folks today, I'd shake their hands for such a FINE job-but that night it scared the bejeezus out of me...they had someone dressed up as a vampire lying in a coffin. You had to walk right up to it before the vampire would sit up and give you candy. I was TERRIFIED, but I did it...mainly 'cause my own mom kept taunting me.

She's so mean.

First, my favorite thing to be for Halloween was a Gypsy girl, always. I loved old black and white movies, and I thought the Gypsy camp in The Wolfman (Lon Chaney) was creepy and so romantic. I had to sneak out of bed at night to watch those forbidden movies. That's a very powerful Halloween memory.

One Halloween, when I was 10 or 11, I went out Trick-or-Treating with my cousin. We were in her neighborhood, on a wonderful street with many old houses, set back a bit from the sidewalk. One house, in particular, always caught my attention. It was on a corner, with lots of trees and it seemed neglected and "haunted"- even by daylight.

We worked up our courage and approached the porch, even though the porch light was off and the house only had some light coming from deep inside. I remember rustling leaves and the sense of being far from the safety of the sidewalk. We walked up the steps and I started to shiver with fear and a strange excitement. My cousin knocked on the door. The top half of the door was glass covered with a lace curtain. We waited, and she knocked again. Then we saw a light inside, coming closer. I turned around, put my back to the door and shut my eyes tight.

Then the door was opened by a little old lady. I whirled around, I had to see who had opened the door! We stammered "Trick-or-Treat"- I don't even remember if she gave us candy.

What she did give me though, was the most wonderful Halloween memory, ever.

My local school district here stinks! They dont even let my kids dress for halloween! Unbelievable! It was soooo much fun back when I was a kid having small parties and enjoying everyones costumes in class...

I hadn't thought of my childhood memories of Halloween for many years. It actually took me a while to recall anything worth repeating, then they all came gushing back. It was seemingly such a long time ago! This story was my awakening that there was more to this day than candy and poorly made store bought costumes.

I grew up in a town of about 500 people in southern Michigan. We had a simple business district. One block long lined on both sides with about a half dozen shops. On Halloween night the whole town would meet in the town hall/ fire barn at midtown for a costume party, bingo and assorted other games for the kids and adults alike. This started at about 7:30 and lasted about 2 hours. The timeline is important here so keep it in mind. After that the town kept bustling with the teenagers now out enjoying Devil's night. They did the usual soaping of windows, throwing of rotten eggs and the occasional flaming paper bag of dog poo on a neighbors porch ( probably not your favorite neighbor). It usually kept the single constable busy running from one end of town to the other until 1 or 2 in the morning. I was about 8 or 9 years old at the time and was in bed long before that so I do not know what or how things happened after that. I do know that the next morning I got up at 6:30 as usual. Had my breakfast as usual and got ready for school. I was usually waiting for the schoolbus by about 7:15. That morning it was a little bit late. The driver said he had a slight delay when he came through town. That was not that unusual but I soon found out what he meant. I lived only 2 blocks from the businesses so it only took a couple of minutes to get there. That morning instead of driving right on through town the driver made an unexpected detour. As we made the turn I was able to see for the first time that Halloween was a day for doing some drastic decorating. Somehow between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. someone had done a little redecorating of our fair town. Both ends of the town were fenced in. In the middle of the street was a mini barn. bales of hay and straw were strewn everywhere. The street had been top-coated with contents of some farmers manure spreader. By the smell of it those contents were freshly cleaned from a local farmers barn. To make the transition from village main street to a barnyard more complete a few pieces of farm equipment as well as goats, cows and pigs were lodged here for the evening. Heck they even brought in someones old outhouse and sat it in the middle of town complete with a dummy obliviously reading the paper with the door open.

Upon seeing all of this the whole bus broke loose in laughter. Then we saw it! Sitting on top of the fire-barn as proud as could be was a John Deere tractor. The laughter stopped. It was amazing. I had never seen anything like it before nor have I since. It took days for the adults to find all the owners of the stuff in that town. It was a mess trying to clean up. The fire department had to hose down all the streets. They had to dismantle the tractor to get it down from the roof. The town caretaker had to feed the animals until there owners came for them. The town's lone cop never did find out who would do such a heinous act. But everyone, and I mean everyone that saw that scene that morning laughed , then just sat amazed and then laughed again until their sides felt as if they would split. You know, I don't think that anybody really cared that they couldn't find the hoodlums that had done all that. I don't think that they even looked that hard. Back then things like that were called pranks. No one got hurt. Everyone got their property back. The town made the front page of the county newspaper. Everyone had one of the most memorable Halloweens of their life!

Wow good read...I actually read that it is good to read everyone's memories...

My nostalgic memories are all of how much Halloween was so amazing to me....since I was a kid i was fascinated by Halloween....and would take it in as much as I take it in as an adult...I would watch tv specials on Halloween...get ready to head to school dressed up....check out local strip malls with my parents and brothers to see what kind of Halloween stuff we could find at outlets or smaller stores...also as i mentioned earlier there was a group of people who would always rent out a vacant store in that particular strip mall I remember from my youth and put on a haunted maze or house...never go to go inside but I was rather just so interested in the costumes sometimes seen to the strobe lights and stuff...

I think Halloween is special in the sense it allows us to relive our youth to some extent...by getting a chance to dress up as whatever we want and not have to abide by morals and ethics and or worry about professionalism for one day lol...

Here in Canada I also grew up in an area where the population is not as big as Toronto...but people here sure knew how to deocarate their houses...Halloween was so visible downtown from the costume shops to the decorations found in many store windows to celebrate Halloween....

Does everyone remember how from the mid 80's to early 90's those cardboard/paper Halloween decorations that you would tape to your window were so popular? There was a huge pumpkin you could buy, the many skelatons, a witch flying behind a pumpking I think, it was a big cut out none the less...and the list goes on...amazing memories of Halloween....