Thread: I wish it was 1989...

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...and I was still a nine-year-old little boy ready to wear my colored pencils down to a nub drawing my Beistle-rip-off Halloween decorations in preparation for my favorite holiday of the year.

Alas, I sit here a 30-year-old little boy trying to remember exactly what it was about Halloween that pulled me in so easily 21 years ago. I still get so excited about this time of year; maybe even more so than I did as a kid. I think that this is because I now control when I climb into the attic to get the decorations down (September 15th this year), I control when I get to go to the pumpkin patch, and I decide how many Jack-o-lanterns I will have. I completely surround myself with Halloween every year.

However, as each year comes and goes and I get further into adulthood; something that I totally abhor; I struggle to REALLY get everything out of Halloween that I want to. As a child, there was a build-up of probably 2-3 weeks where my parents would get us a pumpkin to draw the eventual face on, my elementary school would decorate and classes would watch short Halloween cartoons, we would sing Halloween songs in music class and the local library would have their Halloween books on display. Then a couple days prior, the Garfield Halloween special, Disney's Halloween Treat and The Great Pumpkin would come on TV (Holy crap, it's getting close now!) Then Halloween night would roll around and I would just about explode from excitement. On went my costume and out the door I would run, pillow case in hand ready to knock on as many doors as I could. Yes, TOT lasted just a couple of hours and spanned only 3-4 neighborhood blocks, but to me it was an adventure of the grandest scale!

Then back home I would go with my kill for the year, a pillow case about 1/3 full of candy. Halloween was over, and even though I HATED November 1st as a kid because that meant Halloween was over, I had TOT-ing to let me know that something had been accomplished.

Fast forward 21 years and I still have the build-up like before, the problem is that I never feel like I get the big release on Halloween night because there is no huge TOT adventure, no summit to scale, no huge payoff for the build-up. So when that damned November 1st rolls around, I hit a pretty bad funk for weeks. It seems to get worse every year.

This is partially okay with me because it shows me, in no uncertain terms, that the adult world has not been able to strangle my inner child, nor will it ever. But, how can I, as an adult, get that sense of a Halloween adventure like I did when I was a kid?

Has anyone else out there had this feeling before? What have you done about it? I tend to just sit and daydream of 1989 and dimly lit homes with ghouls, goblins and jack-o-lanterns glowing from windows and porches while listening to the 3 versions of The Great Pumpkin Waltz over and over. I have to find a better way...

You're 30, I'm 52, and I feel much the same way, however I have dveloped so many of my own Halloween traditions that I get great enjoyment from the entire season, including Halloween night. I get hit with a wave of melancholy every year when I finally turn in (usually around 2-3 in the morning) after watching some of the Halloween specials/horror movies. I go outdoors one last time and see the jack o lanterns flickering, look down the quiet street and remember the noise and revelry of a few hours earlier, then go back in and hit the hay. I still get in that funk on November 1st. Don't know if that ever goes away.
Enjoyed reading your post!

1989.... I was in 9th grade and had been too focused on the ex-girlfriend, skateboards and paintballing... My mom handled the halloween decor and candy giving then.

I did however bounce back in 1990 with a vengeance! That is where I decided to scare TOTs instead or goin TOTing!

I remember digging a 3x4x3ft hole in my front yard to hide in and glued some leaves on a cardboard with peepholes as the cover. Layers covered entire yard with leaves from the local park that I raked up for this purpose.

I made a fence & gravestones from old wood pieces I found and drapped the two front trees with shredded potato sacks. My mom bought a few orange light sets, JOLs and hanging skeletons to place throughout the yard.

I even enclosed my porch with black trash bags and created a little maze with sheet partitions. This was my first haunt and had a blast doin it! So 1990 was the year for me!

My husband I just had the same conversation...

We wish we appreciated our childhood more when we were actually children...

And this year we are trying to appreciate our last halloween without children...

I turned 30 this year also... and I think it brings on a lot of introspection...

I totally understand. I build the holiday up the entire month and it is exciting when it finally arrives. I spend the day getting everything ready for the TOTers. We usually have people come over for refreshments after TOT is over and just kind of unwind and relax. I will usually take a little walk to see some of the neighbors JOL or displays if they have one. Unfortunately we don't have many people that do. I have even got in my car and drove around to check stuff out. I'll then watch some horror movies until about 2 A.M. or later. I'll check our JOLs one last time and then I go to bed. Nov.1 is hard but that is the day I take my stuff down. I just get it over as fast as possible ,like pulling a band-aid off. After that I relax some ,maybe take a walk and reflect on the day before on how good it was.And how I can't wait for next year. It ain't easy though.

I had that exact feeling last year, and I think it was because I didn't gear up for Halloween. I helped my mom decorate her house, but I was living with my then boyfriend at his friend's house and I wasn't surrounded with decorations. I didn't go to a pumpkin farm, I didn't watch scary movies and I only spent about a week on my costume (usually it's a two month affair). Once the night of Halloween came, we just went to a party that we both got too drunk at and my parents came to pick us up. (I love my parents for being so amazing and not judging) I woke up the next night with a hangover and wished I just had one more day of Halloween to really enjoy it.

When I was a kid, Halloween was the time to shine. I knew exactly which houses to skip and which would give me the biggest haul. I always had the best costumes and would always show up to school with a costume on, even when it wasn't cool at that age to do so. I would take walks around the neighborhood to see all the houses decorated. It was the best time of year.

This year I'm determined to get that old feeling back. I have my own apartment to decorate so I'm welcomed by spiderwebs and ghosts as soon as I walk in the door. We've started watching scary movies and I'm halfway through my costume. I have 3 parties to go to before Halloween and on the 30th I'm having my party and on the 31st we are going to a haunted house. I truly intend to take every day of October and use it wisely. I want to actually feel like I accomplished something this Halloween. Next week is time to go to Fright Fest at six flags!

Thank you for sharing this Joey,
Do you get any TOT's? Do you get the same thrill from seeing and scaring them?

I feel very nostalgic about Halloween too. I am just as into it as I always was-which is alot.
I surround myself with Halloween all of fall and just try to enjoy it as much as possible since it's only one season.
I hate November 1st too, but what I do is just continue the whole charade for a couple more weeks-I don't take anything down until around Thanksgiving, by which time I can look forward to Christmas.
The actual night can be a let down if you don't get to participate in TOTing or haunting somehow, but I find the whole build up worth it, especially the wimpy way I get past it being over!

1989 was a very good year! I was 26 and my daughter was two and big enough to walk around the neighborhood for trick or treating. I made her clown costume out of those footie pajamas and she carried her pumpkin proudly up to each door. We lived in a fantastic neighborhood for ToT'ing; not a lot of decor but everyone had their lights on and loved giving out treats. A good memory!

1989 was when the kids got their costume on, got a pillowcase, and scoured the town for candy, oftentimes without parental supervision. What great times those where. Nowadays parents are so scared about other ghosts and goblins, that they sheppard the kids by minivan door to door. It's a shame. There are no razor blades in the candy.

In my town, it's worse than that. The local businesses in downtown stay open late to give candy to TOTs. It's with good intention, but the result is parents take the kids in the minvan to downtown to get some candy and then take them home. At our house, we go all out to provide a great halloween show. But most kids just go to downtown. Let the kids have halloween back. They don't know what they are missing, and what they are missing is special and would make great memories.

Well, this all happened to me back in 1969 as I will be 51 this year. And I knew I had a higher calling after the treats were sorted out ( back then fresh apples & popcorn balls were many of the treats we had to watch out for ). But I always knew that I wanted to scare people not just get candy. So I started some 40 years ago jumping out of bushes with my monster mask doing the best I could for a 10 year old, but got that down feeling the next day. With age comes wisdom and I have learned to go out and shop the after sales for several days and start designing and building my next years haunt which has kept that feeling of I can't wait for Halloween going till then. Thanks for a great story and bringing both great and somber feelings which I think all of us has felt one time or another.