Halloween Traditions



I absolutely love fall, the beautiful autumn colors, harvest time, harvest festivals and of course the spooktacular festivities that come with Halloween.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Every year I gear up early for planning Halloween decorations, activities, and the most important Halloween accessory- the costume. 

My family starts planning costumes in early September, earlier for me because I often make parts of my ball costumes. 

Part of the fun is deciding what we want to be then either finding or making the perfect costume. The other part of the fun comes when we actually dress up and “transform” into something new. 

Halloween is the one time of year when you can truly be anything you want to be.

We also start planning Halloween activities and parties early. When the kids were little the family went to all the free and low cost activities for kids and families around town like: trick or treating at the mall, the fun Halloween story telling at book stores, the little parties and activities the local grocery stores Meijer and Kroger offer along with Harvest festivals that included hayrides, apple treats (like delicious apple tarts and apple dumplings), fresh apple cider and the all of the other yummy fall treats like-cinnamon sugar cake donuts (they just don’t taste right unless you drink apple cider with them).

Now we plan events geared towards adults and teens- the Zombie Walk, haunted trails, haunted houses, zombie paintball, the Witches Ball, Witches’ Night Out and other Halloween costume balls.

We grow our own pumpkins after years of being annoyed with how expensive they were to buy. Seeds are cheap (free if you save them from the pumpkins the year before) and maintaining the garden is relatively easy.

Instead of everyone crowding around one pumpkin, everyone gets their very own (free) pumpkin to decorate, paint, or carve however they like. One night, usually a couple days before Halloween the whole family will get together, pick their pumpkins and have a pumpkin decorating extravaganza. It’s an unofficial contest on who can create the best pumpkin, which my husband usually wins because he breaks out the power tools (so unfair).

One of the best aspects of the Halloween season is that the adults can play dress up, just like the kids. We can act silly and spooky and really enjoy ourselves.

What are your Halloween traditions?

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