Tag: celebrating Halloween

A Halloween Gimmick

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

We share a foyer with the apartment next door, whose tenants have chosen to celebrate Halloween by setting up these little figurines in the foyer. They are activated by motion sensors; so every time someone opens or closes the door, or moves in anyway, these figurines flash lights and chant “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat!” Then they cackle maniacally, like Alexa on a bender.

After about the 50th repetition of this, it gets somewhat annoying. And we’ve got 21 days of it to look forward to.

Somewhere out there, in all probability, is someone who has been driven mad by these very figurines. We don’t even get that many trick-or-treaters. The only way to get them here is to forget to buy candy for them.

I’ve always enjoyed Halloween, but this is adding a burden to it.

‘A Halloween Story’ (2017)

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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Let’s have some fun. Here’s a little story I wrote for Halloween three years ago. I am told strong men collapse into quivering masses of Jell-O after reading this.

A Halloween Story

Actually, I’m kind of surprised there’s anything left of Halloween, given the cultural miasma we’re exposed to every day. Oh, they’ll want to ban trick-or-treat and say it’s on account of COVID, which is the all-purpose excuse now every time some liberals want to lop off another of our liberties.

Meanwhile… Can you tell us what’s under the witch mask?

 

Memory Lane: Halloween Windows

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

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Back when New Brunswick, N.J., was a thriving, busy, blue-collar city with a downtown shopping district that attracted folks from miles around, the merchants used to celebrate Halloween by having their shop windows painted for the occasion. They don’t do it anymore. New Brunswick is still our county seat, but badly in need of re-upholstering.

But back then it was a shoppers’ mecca; and every Halloween, my father used to bundle us kids into the car and take us to New Brunswick to see the painted windows.

This was just great; I remember it well. The colors were so vivid, and some of the scenes were deliciously scary. I remember one painting of some trees coming to life and reaching out to seize a hapless human. I wonder now if the whole thing was a contest, with prizes and kudos for the winners.

Somewhere this delightful custom still exists, or I wouldn’t have been able to find a photo to illustrate it. We just don’t have it around here anymore, and that’s a loss for us. It died out before I was old enough to try my hand at window-painting. What fun it must have been! It was certainly fun, tooling around the city and enjoying the pictures.