Hell Night, Halloween Memories and a Contest by Gerri Brousseau

Today is the day before Halloween, more commonly referred to as “Hell Night” when people pull pranks on friends and neighbors. Common pranks in my day were soaping car windows and toilet papering someone’s house. Now, I never did any of those things, but have some friends who did. Halloween is the favorite holiday of many, and in fact a few years ago my son and his wife were married on the night of October 30th. with a Halloween themed wedding including a trick-or-treat candy table and costume booth. It was a unique and fun wedding.

With tomorrow being Halloween, I am looking forward to doing Trick-or-Treat with my little two-year-old Grand-Daughter. She’s just starting to understand the concept of holidays and it is now fun to watch my son and his wife create their family traditions.

I remember when I was a kid (back in the day) I would walk all over creation with a group of my friends knocking on doors and filling a pillow case with candy. The streets were full of kids in costumes, walking in small groups going door to door. No one bothered us. No one put poison or drugs in our candy. I remember that my mother didn’t want me to eat anything until she checked it. She would dump the pillow case out on the kitchen table and pick over all the candy to make sure nothing looked tampered with, but nothing ever was. One year my Mom let me have a Halloween party for some school friends and we actually bobbed for apples. It was a fond memory.

I remember when my son was little that I began in July and made our costumes every year. I’m no seamstress, heck I can do little more than sew a button, but I made our costumes. My favorite memory was the year that we dressed up as clowns. My friends know I’m not fond of clowns, and they can sometimes be scary (Twisty for example), but nevertheless, I had a four-year old boy with orange yarn hair in a home-made clown outfit, complete with a derby hat and red nose.
Then things got a little scary. Kids were being snatched and tainted candy was handed out by sick people. I took my son to the houses of friends and relatives. Thankfully there were school events we could go to and it seemed to pacify him.

When I had the two pugs I would dress them up in complimentary costumes and walk up and down the street with them. I would carry a plastic pumpkin full of candy and hand it out to the children who stopped to pet the pugs. Since Milo got hurt, we haven’t gone out.

This year, I’m looking forward to watching my baby girl learn the concept of saying Trick-or-Treat and getting candy from the few neighbors on the street where they live. I may even put on my pirate costume! I do love priates (wink).

Please take a moment to share your favorite Halloween memory with me and as a treat I will be giving one commenter a copy of one of my books. You must leave a comment to qualify and the winner will be selected at random. The contest will run until midnight tonight. Let’s have some fun, and best of luck.