[Boo Baby]

My Fellow Haunters...

I thought I would throw this question out there. I personally am asked this a LOT!! When the subject comes up on what holiday do you like best (and trust me this comes up when meeting new people quite a bit). People always ask what holiday you like the best and my answer is always Halloween. It's quite surprising the reaction I get, especially when I tell them how much I actually do to celebrate the holiday (haunted lawn, tons of pumpkins carved, lots of enthusiasm for the night) most of the time unfortunately they think I'm crazy. I just don't understand why...tons of folks go all out with Christmas but nobody (including the Christmas enthusiasts) understand why I love Halloween as much as I do. I thought I would start a thread on why I love this special holiday as much as do....

My personal ( and VERY personal reasons are);

1)Halloween and everything about it has always made me happy (ever since I was a little girl), from the sights and even the smells of the fall night have made me feel very at home

2) The most important reason for me now...My late brother absolutely loved the holiday, just as I do. The last precious moment I have seeing him alive was heading out the door with some horrible green goop on his face while heading out to a Halloween party asking me how he looked with the most silly look on his face. I will forever have this image imprinted on my mind.

For those reasons you willl never see a dark house or an unlit jack o lantern, in my home. I will always be the one on my block doing my best and giving out the treats to the goblins that come to my door. Long live Halloween!!

Boo...

 

[Dr.Ghoul]

For me it has to be the fun of Halloween. Unlike decorating for Christmas, you can go all out with your decorations throughout the whole lawn and house, and it wont look to gaudy, like alot of Christmas decorations tend to be. Fall is also my favorite season, perfect weather. And Halloween is just fun, it has such a great atmosphere to it. The cool autumn days, all the different colors of the leaves, and watching scaring movies on TV all throughout October. Its hard to explain, but Halloween is just it, its the holiday.

 

[FirstSpartan]

thanks for sharing Boo Baby!! that's a very touching reason. My brother also got me into decorating but even before that it was a list topper for my favorite holiday. The memories of trick-or-treating with friends as a kid and now being able to scare and entertain the kids and parents that come by on Halloween. And fall has been my favorite season for a while now. All the leaves changing color and snow not too far away (yes, I'm a snow and cold weather nut )

 

[13mummy]

I also have loved Halloween since a little girl as well. Just looking at a jack-o-latern makes me smile. My in-laws thinks I'm crazy. I just wish I had all you guys close so we could hang out and talk halloween all the time.

 

[22606]

Instead of a long, drawn-out explanation, I'll put it quite simply: I've always been drawn to the darker side and find enjoyment in scaring people

 

[Biggie]

I just like building stuff, and christmas is so over played. How many people will actually approach you about your decorations on christmas. Now on halloween we have 1000's of ToT'ers come through our neighbourhood. I always enjoyed the holiday as a kid, and I am still a kid only to old to Tot. So the next best thing is to give what back all I have gotten. All the memories and fun I had being little, running around with friends. Being able to stay up till 2am even on a school night. It was embedded into my blood and who I am. Now I get to give back, treat the next generation Tot'ers. Give them the feeling I once loved and cherished, and I am lucky to still have friends who love the holiday too. We have just stepped up from receiving to giving, And in reality that is such a better feeling to me. Also I have an outlet of creativity when I have props to build. Better hobby than my gaming IMHO, and did I mention the giving back part.

You better believe when I have kids they are going to be little goblins in the fall season too.

 

[thegingerowl]

I think a lot of my love for the holiday has to do with our family and how I was raised. I have so many fond memories of Halloween and the season as a whole that it will always, always, always remain my favourite time of year. I'm sure this group shares many of them.
The smells of wet, musty leaves and the chill air, latex masks, slimey pumpkin guts through your fingers, jackos flickering on porch stoops, smoke beginning to rise from chimneys, home cooking and of long walks around the neighborhood shuffling through gutters of thick shed foliage...the mystery, adventure, and homey warmth of the season that for some reason I do not feel as strongly in the winter time or even around Christmas. etc., etc..

PLUS...jackos, bats, ghosts and everything else Halloween-associated are infinitely more awesome than reindeer, glittery ornaments and candycanes.

It's not weird.

 

[Pumpkin Torture Guy]

There are dozens of reasons to like halloween, but it mostly stems from my childhood memories. I'm 57 years old and can still remember what I dressed up as for our first grade party at school. Can't beat memories or halloween. It don't get any better.

 

[VeeCat]

I aswell always enjoyed it when I was a little girl.
Everything about it makes me smile, even if some things do actually scare me!

The idea of getting to build up so much, just for a couple of hours of trick-or-treaters,
it makes me happy. Really, really happy.

 

[mementomori]

i like to believe i'm helping create memories for the younger generations just as those who haunted thier homes and gave me candy when i was a little ghoul and helped shape my love of halloween. That and i love the holiday, it's my Christmas. I told a cashier at a store that it's my christmas yesterday and she looked at me like i was green and had a third eye but i don't care.

 

[The Real Joker]

Yep me too - always loved Halloween growing up in New Jersey
The fall foliage changing, the moonlit nights warmed by warm apple cider and candy corn,
and walking the entire lenght of my town on All Hallow's Eve - And now I get to share it with the fellow haunters who enjoy it for the same reasons, scaring TOTs

 

[Scaranda]

I love Halloween for a few reasons.

1.) Growing up, my mom and former stepfather went to a Southern Baptist church. I was NOT allowed to go trick or treating or even wear a costume, because to them it was known as "the devil's birthday." On Halloween night, I'd have to go to church dressed up as a biblical character and sit in the sanctuary while listening to a bunch of scripture readings. So until the age of 14, I never knew what it was like to go door to door and say "trick or treat!" Thanks to them, I missed a lot of opportunities.
2.) An aunt I was very close to loved Halloween. Before she passed away 5 years ago, she had become legally blind and had kidney failure as a result of diabetes. Even though she couldn't see to decorate, every year on the 28th of September [her birthday] I would cob web her front porch and put up the decorations for her. After her passing, I honor her birthday every year and put all her old Halloween decorations up.
3.) Being that Halloween was taken from me as a child and the fact that my beloved Aunt was a Halloween freak, I got a job working at a local haunt which was fueled my love even more. Nothing is better than getting to create a creepy character and scaring people for a month long. It's Halloween every weekend for a month straight, which makes up for the lack of childhood memories.

 

[v_gan]

most of the time unfortunately they think I'm crazy. I just don't understand why...

Because Halloween is SATAN'S HOLIDAY!

Kidding, kidding.. hehe.

Maybe I just don't notice people reactions since I don't really care what they think, but I can't recall anyone actually being shocked to find out my favorite holiday is Halloween.

I just enjoy the overall feel of the holiday and the season. It's my favorite time of year, and I want to keep that feeling alive for future generations.

 

[Hallowzeve]

Halloween and Autumn just speak to me; that is as best as I could explain it. People who ask "Why Halloween?"either don't have the draw to it or misunderstand the history and think it is a night of Devil worship. I feel a certain blend of nostalgia and magic when I see skellys and pumpkins and all the while the nights are getting shorter and shorter...just a great time of the year.

 

[TechChild]

I think the main reason I love it so much is when I was young I was not allowed to celebrate it.

 

[hannibal]

I didn't start off loving Halloween. We went trick or treating as kids, mom put up a few decorations...ya know the normal stuff. I've always been attracted to the darker side of life. Ghosts, scary movies (which I remember watching w/my mom when I was about 8), hauntings, death,... stuff like that. When we started taking my daughter trick or treating some of the decorations, though people made an effort, were just lame. I always thought I could do better than that. Last year I threw my hat in the ring and for a first try it wasn't bad at all. Neighbors loved it..kids were afraid to come here...and now I am totally addicted. I have my daughter and hubby as actors this year and hopefully I can recruit more as I get deeper into it. Halloween is now my Christmas.

 

[Zombie Machairodont]

Since I could easily turn this into a half-page (or more) wall 'o text with my explanation, I'm going to say that the "feeling" so many of us describe is definitely a biggie. I love macabre or at least dark imagery, and I have a certain fascination with how culture interplays with the visuals of the our fears and the unknown. So many things, from the music that we relate with the season to the images to the feelings...there is so much that I love. It all makes me happy. Is it because my mom is a major Halloween fanatic and started me extra early (she showed me a crayon drawing this summer that I did of a ghost, witch, bat, and some indeterminate things that I made when I was three), with gargoyles around the house and horror movies on the TV? I have no idea, but I'm thankful for whatever first started that love.

At the risk of sounding corny, I kind of consider Halloween to be the imagination's holiday. I realize it has its own vital place in the cultures/religions that originally spawned it and have contributed to what it is today, but as for me I see it as a celebration of all the crazy, beautiful, horrible, etc. etc. things our noodles have thought up. I tend to be rather cynical of humanity, but I do regard our ability to create and imagine as one of our few positive qualities. After all, just paroosing through this forum you can see the most amazing things, created by the fertile minds of individuals.

 

[Wolfman]

I like it because it's an excellent way to connect with our kids. I think that's important, doing things together, having common interests. Plus, shared memories with the kids, you can never have too many of those. It's guaranteed, that, at least once a year, after your kids have grown up and moved on, they'll look back fondly and remember...

And it's a great way to see just how far you can go. How outrageous can you get. In the past, the distant past, I used to RENT a Fog Machine. They weren't readily available like today, I needed to rent a big commercial unit to set the stage. At various times we've used live rats, a real Human Skeleton and 25,000 newly hatched flies for our home haunt. This year, the 19th occasion that I have done a scare, some of us are attaching live maggots onto our faces as part of our Zombie make-up. We want them to keep coming back, year after year, asking, "What Next"?

 

[jtohm]

I feel like an echo here, mainly because I've also had a strong passion for Halloween since I was very young. Coming from a family that lives and breathes Christmas (and murders it in the process), I rebelled and went with Halloween. Not without reason, of course.

Unlike Christmas and Easter (the two other big holidays our family celebrates), Halloween has no false icon (Great Pumpkin aside). Christmas has Santa Claus; Easter, the Easter Bunny. Halloween is what it is without pretending to be something else. I don't have to lie to kids and fill their heads with nonsensical myths to make the holiday enjoyable and worth celebrating. In fact, Halloween is the exact opposite for me; it's making fun of all those things that don't exist (ghosts, demons, monsters, etc.).

Other reasons....

• Summer is too hot and humid here; winter, way too dang cold (Minnesota!); Fall is just PERFECT. Couple that with the smell of autumn and the bright orange pumpkins and I'm all smiles. It's an unexplainable gut feeling and the only time of year I'm completely at peace.
  
• How everything seems to be darker around Halloween. Even though it's all in our heads, it's a great escape.
  
• Halloween parties.
  
• Classic Halloween imagery (witches, ghosts, pumpkins, etc.)

 

[jtohm]

I think the main reason I love it so much is when I was young I was not allowed to celebrate it.

You poor thing...Why-oh-why would someone do that to their children?

On the bright side...now you can make up for it.