Hell yes! Think I'll go trick-or-treating this weekend.

And the only thing that makes Christmas survivable is Krampus. That, and schadenfreude. And hot chocolate. The rest is crap.

I was really disappointed that the article about analyzing "Fremont peoples' coprolites" was about Fremont sites in Utah, and not an analysis of ancient poos right here in the East Bay that I could link to you.

Oh wow. Speaking of Krampus. http://www.bromart.com/krampus.html

I highly approve'a yer way'a thinkin'! Halloween is WAY too awesome ta be held only once a year when christmas is celebrated twice! Get the grill out an cook up some halloweinies! ;)

I thought every day was Halloween?

Well you wanna go out 'cause it's rainin' and blowin'!
But ya can't go out 'cause yer roots are showin'!
Dye 'em black! Dye 'em blaaaaaaack!

omg I love you
I had that playing when I posted lol

Wow...thank you for the link to Sally's stuff you can't imagine just how awesome it is seeing her work again.

Jack-O-Lanterns, trick or treating, burning witches at the stake, soaping car windows, masks and costumes, stealing candy from the little kids, ringing door bells and then running away, setting fire to piles of leaves … yeah, Halloween has it all over Christmas when it comes to night-time fun.

My aunt raised me as her own, and she used to hold these HUGE halloween parties. EVERYone would be there. Relatives, people from the neighborhood, people would come from out of town. It was like living with one of those old time Washington DC presidents wives/socialites. She would spend the month before setting it up. We used to play rhyming games all the time and we'd hide treats everywhere, all throughout the yard and neighborhood, and we'd write clues in poem form.

My uncles band would perform, and every now and then my uncles cousin, a certain Bobby 'Boris' Pickett would show up and sing the Monster Mash. Yes...I swear to you, no word of a lie, my family on my fathers side (Adams...again..not kidding) is related to the Picketts. Halloween is such a huge part of who and what I am, I love horror and everything associated with it. I mean, I know I sound like the stereotypical goth type but I grew up in New England. There are lots of haunted places in Rhode Island, we were once considered the vampire capitol of the new world.

So yeah..Halloween. My mate Kurzar and I were married on that day in 2001, and we both met our mate Kataugh on Halloween back in 2008. Sorry to go on I just really loved this journal post and felt the need to take time to especially thank you for the happy memories.

Wow, that's awesome! I mean... I love the holiday, it's one of my two favorite holidays ever, and of course the way I associate Halloween with autumn (best season of the year!) and roleplaying games only helps that along. But it sounds like you have 'way more reason to be into Halloween than I ever had!

While I didn't always have a very happy childhood, I was extremely fortunate to have had a lot of truly wonderful people in my life..people who I didn't always appreciate. The main reason I go out of my way to show my appreciation for others is because at the time, I felt only anger and bitterness because of the bad things that happened to me and took the gifts for granted. I was a mean, selfish little shit in my teens and hurt a lot of the people who loved me and who caused me to love the things I now cherish.

So yeah..I wear this human suit as my costume. Inside beats the heart of a roo. Sure, I might not look like Zid but at least I've caused folks to laugh and smile because of this outfit, and that's not such a bad thing after all, I think.

Man, why wasn't I watching you, anyways?

It's all good. I'm not incredibly active. Some people can pump out the creativity, I pretty much work best when doing things when the mood inspires me. Still, I appreciate the watch.

Halloween, so much better than Christmas. I actually look forward to it. Yes, it is heavily commercialized, but its not hammered into the ground and so its much more enjoyable. Thanksgiving > New Year of shitty remixes of carols just gets on my nerves... Bad part is that all the fake smiles, false happiness, and general bullshit during the "Season of Giving" turns me into a royal asshole by the end.
Granted, holidays are much better if you celebrate them with party oriented pagans. Any holiday can be made better by a bonfire out in the woods, roasting meat, and plenty of alcohol.

Halloween's a good holiday. I think by definition because it's much more in line with the basic human desires to look like an idiot, dance around like crazy, and get loaded on whatever's available. The only things missing are implied sex and a belief in a greater spiritual realm and if you're hanging out with the right witchy types you've got all the basic human festival things right there.

That, and it's a short deal which doesn't try to be the be all end all of all holidays. There isn't a holiday out there which wouldn't get stale after over a month, let alone four months.

I think the main reason Halloween has a different feel is because first off, it's kind of hard to really insult someones faith (Wicca/pagan) when one of the cornerstones of that faith is the understanding that each individual finds the path in their own way. -Most- pagans/Wiccans generally refrain from telling others how to go about practicing (for the most part, there are exceptions to every rule, of course).

It's hard to insult something when not only are the people into it not likely to get offended. but also when the overwhelming majority of it was invented FOR the purpose of creating a holiday. Halloween the way most people practice it has very little to do with pagan customs. Sure, some do celebrate it but their way of celebrating it is more likely to be private. I know some wiccan friends who worship after they've come home from trick or treating.

I guess in general most people I know who are pagan generally have a good sense of humor about it.

I usually start missing Halloween by March. Lately I've been putting together a Halloween playlist. By the way, your Mysterious Mose link eventually led me to a couple old "skeleton dance" videos... one is Disney, from 1929, made by Disney and the other is 1937, Columbia, and totally rips off the first one, to the point of having the exact same ending, mutant composite skeleton, grave slab, extending-its-neck-until-you-can-see-the-skin-between-the-feathers crowing rooster and all. I thought it was kind of neat watching the two and comparing, though the earlier one is definitely superior.

1937- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXkQSiJG7fk
1929- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBhpn6IPSJo

I also love the old-timey spooky feeling in both of these. With all today's zombie hordes, serial killers and giant pirahnas, you really never see an old-fashioned creepy, moonlit, windy graveyard anymore. But I think stuff like The Skeleton Dance, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, or the Night on Bald Mountain scene from Fantasia are really what Halloween is all about.

I started a Halloween/Call of Cthulhu themed playlist a while back. I figured the randomize function would make playlists awesome for Call of Cthulhu games especially because that'd spew out random 20s/30s popular music during tense moments and fights, or edgy soundtracks and instrumentals during more relaxed parts of the game, and create this sort of "nowhere's really safe" atmosphere.

I think there were a lot of societal fears being processed in the 20s and 30s, and we don't really quite think about that usually - but that's where the old cartoons came from, same as how we spew out endless zombie and post-apocalypse stories because it's our reaction to our stuff.

I'd agree with you though. Halloween is sort of a cipher for horror. Happy brightly colored holiday things and stereotypically toned-down graveyards and crooked trees, but you know that beyond that is all the stuff that scares the hell out of you as a kid.