Halloween Discussion Forums, Costumes, Horror!

I forgot to mention that my cousin, a retired Home Economics teacher, is a superb seamstress. She did not make the bridal gown, though she did alter it slightly ( she hid an Irish lace cross among the folds of lace in the skirt, which a handful of people noticed). She did make the bridesmaids gowns.

We went to Niagara Falls for our honeymoon, we chose it for a few reasons, it was affordable and close enough to us, and we had just covered the cost of the wedding, and around the same time we were beginning to start the renovations for her new bakery, so most of our funds went into that. At the time it was a major risk, but thankfully it went well. The honeymoon itself was beautiful, and I wouldn't change it, though the romantic in me truly wishes that I could have brought her to France, maybe one day.

You brought up something interesting regarding the groom being a atheist that I honestly haven't ever thought about until you mentioned it, and that is that most people that ever get married do so mainly because they view marriage, and rightfully so, as a religious ceremony, and regardless of which religion you believe in, the very act of marriage is basically a form of religious unification. So it brings up the question, what is marriage without religion?

I get it, love is love, and if 2 people love each other then that should be the only thing that matters, but I think that marriage without religion is just a government contract, and if your marriage is just a piece of paper, then it's just another excuse to use for divorce. Don't get me wrong, I don't judge anybody for getting divorced, especially if they have a real reason like my mother did, and I know that most divorces come from religious based marriages. A good friend I have known for years is on his third marriage, he's a good person, and I don't judge him for it.

Maybe it's because I was brought up religious, and regardless of my parents marriage, I believe that when you take your marital vows that they are a promise, not only to each other, but to the Lord, and that you must honor that promise until death. I've said before that I don't believe in divorce, and I'm thankful that I married a woman that feels the same way. We are stuck with each other until the end regardless of what might come, and if she wants to get rid of me before that then she's going to have to put a bullet in my head.

Well, I'm going to be busy for the whole Halloweekend, so I'll be back on Mon. Have a ghoulishly good time everybody!

Among my 10 siblings there has been 18 marriages and 13 divorces,.

9 Catholic, 1 Lutheran, 2 fundamentalist Christian, 1 Jewish and 5 non-denominational.

I guess it's more of a hobby in my family.

Those are sad stats, and I shouldn't chuckle, but the way you expressed yourself did amuse me.

Marriage is of course a legal as well as a religious act. I think some non-religious people marry "officially" because of certain legal protections, and because they do regard it as an indicator of serious commitment. Also, if people hope to have children, I think children prefer it when their parents are married. Little kids are surprisingly conservative about some things. They want mommy, daddy, the dog, and the white picket fence.

There've been a lot of divorces among my cousins on my mother's side, but not so many among my paternal cousins. Not sure why that is.

Although true it was definitely meant to amuse.

Well, I'm back. I'll try to make this as short as possible.

As usual, I started Halloween at midnight by watching some horror movies while everybody else was sleeping, then I went to sleep for about a hour before getting back up at 5am. I got my costumes ready, and I also put up the last few decorations in my yard before I got dressed.

Of course, The Great Pumpkin arrived early to give Phoebe her candy and presents, and even though Sam was deliberately getting ready at that time and missed him, he still made sure to leave her a present. Then I went to the neighbor's house to visit their kids, and they were very happy for the candy and presents as well.

I also made sure to give Millie a call because this was her hundredth Halloween, she was excited about it, but when I talked to her again the next day to find out how it went, she told me that she went to sleep around 7pm and missed most of the fun.

We went to the restaurant for about 10 minutes to make sure that everything was running smooth, and then my wife and I came back here to get into our costumes. As I mentioned, we were dressing up in Hocus Pocus costumes, my wife and the girls were the Sanderson sisters, and I was Billy Butcherson. It took awhile to get the makeup on, but it looked awesome when it was done.

Then we picked up the girls and some of their friends from school, their reaction to my costume was perfect! A few screams, followed by some laughs, I couldn't have asked for a better result. We got back here to wait for the rest of their friends to arrive, each of them screaming when I answered the door to greet them, I loved it!

Something interesting I noticed this year was that on Oct. 30th and Nov. 1st at 6:30pm it was already dark outside, but on Halloween night at the same exact time there was still daylight out. That's the first time in my 44 years on this planet that this has ever happened.

Anyway, we left the house around 6pm to go trick-or-treating, there were 14 kids with us in total, and we drove to the popular area to make sure that they would get some good candy. The neighborhood there was decorated beautifully, I just wish that people around here were that passionate about it, while the kids were running around door to door I waited on the sidewalk for them, groaning to scare anybody that walked by, and people were commenting how great my costume was. Then a little kid walked up and said trick-or-treat to me, I guess she thought that I lived at the house that I was standing in front of, I had to think fast, so I told her to go to that house to get candy, so she did. I honestly felt bad, because I have always given candy to a kid, but it's not like I had any candy with me, or I would have gave her some.

We got back here shortly after 8pm, and then a few more of their friends arrived, making 18 kids in total at the party. We played some games, told some scary stories, and ordered pizza for them, and because some of the kids were not staying for the night we only had time to watch one movie, so the kids voted and we watched Hocus Pocus, I mean, it's only the 5th time we watched it this month, but that's fine.

The party wrapped up around 11pm, and most of the kids went home, 8 of them stayed for the night and we continued to have fun and watch movies until 2am. We managed to get rid of some of that Disney candy by filling a large pinata with it, and my wife told me that there were about 100 trick-or-treaters at our place that night, and she tried to give away as much of that Disney candy as she could, but we still had a large pile of candy leftover so we gave some of it to the kids at the party as prizes for trivia and games, and they were happy for the extra candy. Of course, after the kids went to sleep, my wife and I had some candy, and then it was time for Winifred and Billy to have some fun by themselves, wink, wink.

We got up early on Sat. morning, well, I did, everybody else got up at 8am, we made sure that everybody ate something for breakfast, and no, it wasn't candy, even though some of the kids insisted on it, we waited on their other friends to arrive, then we headed out for day. We went to a local haunt first, the good thing about Halloween on a Fri. is that attractions are open for the whole weekend, while we were there, I found out that 2 of the kids that were with us had birthdays that week, one kid on Oct. 30, and another on Nov. 2, so after the haunt I decided to bring them to Walmart to get them a present. Of course, it wouldn't be fair to the others if I didn't get them something as well, so I got a present for each kid that was with us. One of the other parents that was with us, she was new to the group, told me that I shouldn't spoil them, another parent that had been with us before told her that this is the way it is, and there's no point in arguing with me about it, she's right, and I'm glad that some people are paying attention.

Then we went to the community center and they had some games, a very family friendly haunt, and a costume contest. We went to the mall after that where they have the arcade that's like Chuck E. Cheese, we were there for a few hours before we came back here for more movies and games, and a few kids stayed the night ... but we weren't done yet.

On Sun. morning their friends came back and we went back to the farm haunt again. The first time we were there at night, and it had a creepy atmosphere, but when you're there in the daytime it seemed so toned down compared to their night presentation. I don't know, maybe the actors were tired after doing the show for a whole month, but they didn't seem into it much, but when you're there in the day you get a better look at the decorations, some of which were very well designed. It was still fun for the kids though, as they had a hayride, maze, activities, and more cider than any normal human should consume.

Then we came back here, gave the kids some dinner, and then waited for their parents to pick them up. I'm glad that everybody had fun this weekend, I did as well, but as the old guy there's only so much fun that I can handle, and right now, with the amount of walking and standing I did this weekend, I feel like a truck hit me. Man, the youth are truly blessed with endless energy.

Uh, sorry, the post still turned out long. I hope that everybody here had a good weekend as well.

Thank you so much for sharing your plus-perfect Halloween weekend with us! Ours was quite subdued even by our own standards, but we did have several groups of ToTers pass through, and a church party on Nov 1 with Trunk or Treat at the end, so we celebrated.

My Chicago son attended a costume party on Friday, followed by a spooky play on Sat. He described some of the stage effects to me. He said it was his favorite play he's attended while living up there. I guess i raised him right, at least w/re/to Halloween. He always finds a way to observe it.

Meanwhile, we aren't quite through with the spooky season around here. Even though I've now packed away all our yard decorations, we are still watching scary movies every night.

I'm glad to hear that your older son enjoyed his weekend. Did your other kids dress up and go to the church party with you?

I know what you mean, I was so busy last month that I only got to watch family movies, so lately when everybody is sleeping I've been watching horror movies, nothing gory, just stuff I can't watch when the kids are around.

Sadly, no, my two at-home kids did not costume this year. My daughter was actually working on Nov 1 at a Christian bookstore, where some people (and, more pointedly, some customers) are not into Halloween. My younger son, who works at night, was still sleeping when the church party happened from 5-7. On the night itself I don't recall either of them doing much. My son had the same situation, sleeping and then eating breakfast/ supper before work. My daughter didn't work as late on Halloween, but I think she was just tired when she got home.

Since my husband teaches Sunday school to middle schoolers, he is always involved with church activities for the kids. They call their October party a fall festival and discourage "witchy" costumes, but most of the kids go for super heroes and Disney princesses, etc, and there are lots of jack-o-lanterns about, so of course it's a Halloween party. Sometimes there's a skit about Martin Luther, since he nailed up the 95 theses and kicked off the Protestant Reformation on Halloween, but they didn't do that this year.

My daughter told me last week that she gets around the weirdness some of her customers have re Halloween by wishing them a "Happy Hallowmas," which is the proper term for the three days from Oct 31- Nov 2, at least in denominations that follow the liturgical calendar.

What happened to the Daphne costume she was going to wear? It seemed like she was excited about it.

It's a shame that the world has changed so much that you have to watch what you say to everybody so that they aren't offended. I get it, there is more diversity now than there was back in the day, and I don't discriminate against any other cultures, but we shouldn't have to stifle our traditions in the name of inclusivity to accommodate some foreigners that just got here.

A few years ago it was really bad around here, where every time you would wish somebody a Merry Christmas they would actually have the nerve to correct you or look at you as if you pi**ed in their coffee. It's a little better now that the woke people are going back to sleep, but you still occasionally get idiots that complain about it.

I can recall one incident when we had a large banner that said MERRY CHRISTMAS hanging in the front window of the restaurant, and a woman walked in and started complaining to my staff that it was being insensitive to the community, I told her that she has her traditions, and we have ours, and if she didn't like it she could leave, so she did. Then the b***h actually went online and left the restaurant a bad review, and she didn't even eat here!

The world is filled with nothing but f*****g pu**ies today.

On a more positive note, I just heard that they are making another Mummy movie with Brendan Fraser and most of the other actors, and it isn't a reboot but a continuation of the franchise.

Yes, I've heard about the Mummy continuation. We love that movie, so I hope it's a good script. Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz (sp?) are both Oscar winners now.

My daughter still has the Daphne costume, so I guess she's just waiting for the right opportunity to wear it. It didn't happen this year. Perhaps she'll ask for Halloween off next year and get a party going. She's been a little stressed about money since she and I took the trip to Charleston. She's been determined to refill the coffers. At least in Charleston we did take a ghost tour (they have several different ones), so she got a little Halloween in that way.

That is a bizarre story about that woman trash-talking your business on line because you dared to wish folks a merry Christmas. I don't know exactly where you live, but I don't think you would have had that issue in the South. It does seem that, for the moment, the woke-sters are in retreat, but I think it's a religion for some of them, so it may be a temporary reprieve.

Of course, the folks who dislike Halloween are on the opposite side politically from those who dislike Christmas. I knew parents who wouldn't let their kids read Harry Potter back in the day. Even though I identify as Christian and conservative, I can't go that far with them. IMO Harry Potter, though not a Christian series, was very much grounded in Judeo-Christian values. I mean, you find out in the very first book that Harry survived Voldemort (whose name means either Death wish or Will-to-death) because his dying mother cast a love spell on him. Love defeating death is THE Christian theme. Also, I think most cultures do have a masking holiday or a season of carnival, and Halloween is ours. The universality of the impulse suggests to me that we need that release. It doesn't have to be about devil-worship. But some people get very puritanical about it. Their attitude reminds me of Sir Toby Belch's riposte to Malvolio in Twelfth Night, " Dost think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" There are Puritans on both the left and the right sides of the culture wars.

You wouldn't believe some of the stupid reasons that people have for leaving a negative review for the restaurant, they can range from something simple, maybe a mistake that one of the employees made, to customers blatantly telling lies about their experience here. The most negative reviews that we get are usually from local foodies that come in to record themselves while they eat so that they can post it on social media, most of them don't criticize the meal, or the service, but they leave a negative review because they think that they should have got their meal for free because they think that they are entitled to it for being a youtuber, and when we don't give them a free meal the leave a negative review because they think it will hurt the restaurant. But guess what? Our restaurant currently holds a 98% positive rating across various review websites, and that clearly shows that most customers are happy with our meals and service. This restaurant has been here for almost 60 years, and it will still be here long after these little s**ts are gone.

Around here we don't have many people that argue about Halloween, people either participate or they don't, but they don't complain about it. When it comes to Christmas though, there are people around here that will argue with you until they are blue in the face that you have to be respectful to every culture and their practices by not forcing our Christmas traditions on them, and we now have to say Happy Holidays so that it's inclusive to everybody.

The stupid thing with that is that those people, regardless of what culture they represent, can parade around celebrating and push their traditions on us, but if we say Merry Christmas to anybody then we are being insensitive to them. When you hear me complain about this you might think that I'm referring to mostly foreign cultures that have had significant growth in the community because of immigration and overpopulation, but I'm not. Actually, most of the newcomers don't seem to mind Christmas and some of them even embrace it and teach their kids to respect the traditions associated with it. Of course, there are some foreigners that do come here and complain about it, but it is a smaller number than you would expect.

I know this might shock you, but the people that I'm referring specifically to are actually some white people that were born here, and there are 3 types of people that complain the most, the group that celebrates Hanukah, the atheists, and the woke inclusive Karen types that tell us to play nice with everybody. Like I said, I don't discriminate against any other cultures, but I'm going to explain each one individually, and why I think they are being unreasonable and hypocritical.

First, the group that celebrates Hanukah, and I think that they are the group that are the worst hypocrites from a religious and historical standpoint. When I was growing up there was maybe about 5 kids in the whole school that celebrated Hanukah, and they certainly didn't care that we celebrated Christmas, most of them even participated in Christmas plays and sang carols with us, but they didn't push their beliefs on us, or complain about not being included.

Then the late 90s happened, and suddenly, they started to feel segregated ... again, which seems to be their eternal complaint in this life, and they began to push their holiday on us because they were tired of Christmas being number 1, while they sat there and celebrated their holiday in the background. So movies and shows started to spread awareness of their holiday to the rest of society, and that's fine, they should want their traditions to be celebrated, but this is where the hypocrisy comes into play.

When I found out the reason for why they light the candles on the Menorah I bursted out laughing, if you didn't know, each candle that they light represents each of the miracles that were performed for their people during the events of the Exodus, I find that ironic and hilarious, because while Moses was receiving the 10 Commandments, the rest of them were down there building and worshipping false idols, and making a mockery of those same miracles that were done for them. Now, you can argue that it was specifically those people back then in that time that did that, and maybe their descendants actually do appreciate the miracles that their ancestors didn't, but it's still ironic that they light the candles for that reason.

Then there's the Christ reason, well, this should be self explanatory, but basically their people disavowed any association with him just so that they wouldn't be persecuted, and to this day they still refuse to acknowledge that he is the Lord and savior of humanity, even though they already know the truth, but that's another story, and they still complain that we celebrate Christmas because of him.

The biggest joke though, is that there have been countless Christmas movies, and I mean literally countless movies about Christmas, that had a Jewish actor in the lead role. But I guess that they will utter the words Merry Christmas out of their mouth as long as they are being paid for it. Hypocrites. The last thing is that they don't even know what to call their holiday ... Hanukah? Hanukkah? Chanukah? Seriously, just pick a name and stick with it.

The atheists - I get it, not everybody is religious, but just because they don't believe in anything doesn't mean that they can tell us not to celebrate Christmas around them. If they don't like it then they can just shut up and stay out of our way, instead of complaining that we are offending them.

The woke inclusive Karen types - I'm sure you know the morons that I'm talking about, it's usually women, but it can also be men and any other gender that people identify as these days, that walk around interfering in other peoples lives, pushing their opinion in your face, and expecting everybody they meet to join their mythical quest for inclusivity.

Oh, you can't say Merry Christmas to people, how dare you offend the other cultures in our community? Don't you know that there are other religious and nonreligious people that don't celebrate Christmas? You should be ashamed of yourself, you're not being inclusive, you should say HAPPY HOLIDAYS so that everybody, no matter who you are, or where you come from, is treated equally, and we can celebrate this holiday season together.

That is almost verbatim of something that a woman once said to my wife and I when we were at the school for their *holiday* play, and she heard us say Merry Christmas to one of the teachers there. I told her to go f**k herself and to have a Merry Christmas! Of course, she ran crying to the principal about it, so the principal walked over to us and asked, did you just tell that woman to go f**k herself? I said, yes, yes I did. She said ... Thank you, that woman has been a pain in my a** for years, but because of my position here I can't scream at her. We stood there laughing about it with her, and then watched the play.

I guess the funny thing about it is that most of these woke inclusive Karen types are usually self righteous, self professed, Christian women that absolutely believe in their mind that they are doing the right thing by telling other people how they should live their lives. I feel bad for my cousin Karen though, because she's a really nice person but her name is now associated with being a b***h in our society.

As for woke people in general, and their message of inclusivity. I get it, I teach my kids to be respectful to everybody, because that's the way we were taught when we were growing up. But being tolerant of different people and their culture, identity, sexual preference, or religion, doesn't mean that you have to constantly be bombarded with their opinion, or put up with them trying to change who you are. I don't tell other people how to raise their kids, and I expect other people to show us that same respect when my kids visit their house.

There will always be woke people in our society to force their opinion on you. Sure, their title will change from generation to generation, but a a*****e, is always going to be a a*****e.

Man, I should have gone to watch a movie.

I'm sorry to hear that some people have been trying to blackmail you by giving a bad on line review of your restaurant. That's the way I look at those YouTubers who think they deserve free food or else. It's just petty blackmail. At least you have a great many loyal and satisfied customers who tell the truth.

I share this quote often because it rings true with me.

As I have also shared, my ancestors came to the new world centuries ago and our roots run deep and wide, but if you make the effort and embrace being American then more power to you.

This applies to all people, foreign and domestic.



"We know when we started.

We know the afternoon; July fourth 1776, and we know how to become an American.

You come here, and you ascent.

Then you're an American, just as American as anybody whose family has been here for ten generations.

You're in, you're it.

That's what an American is."

- ' George Will

On a more troubling point, with the current election result in NYC I worry that the Thanksgiving parade and Rockefeller Christmas tree traditions might be on the chopping block.