It's the Little Things...

On the eve of my 21st birthday, as I came home to prepare for the copious amount of alcohol that  would be consumed that evening, I  came home to a little surprise from my mother.

Yes, my friends, that IS a light-up pumpkin bracelet. I shall wear it proudly as many times as I think I can swing it this month as a reminder of what lies ahead of me, and a reminder that no matter how crappy my school day may be, or how poorly I do at the gym, it can't be all that bad...because it's almost Halloween.

Do you have anything you wear for the entire month to remind you that Halloween is coming? Do you have something you'd LIKE to wear all month? Let me know in the comments!

Childhood Memories

I have some very very fond memories of Halloween as a child.

My mom would make dinner, and my sister and I would eat it in our costumes at the table. We'd go out with our mom, dad staying home to run candy patrol, and we would zig-zag through the streets to hit up as MANY houses as we could. Every year we were determined to hit even more than the year before, but around 9 pm we'd eventually poop out and turn around.

We always decorated our house the same way. We had a little porch in the front of our house that was just long enough for one string of lights all the way across. We had orange plastic bags with pumpkin faces on them that we'd stuff with newspaper and hang from the rafters, and we had window clings that we put up year after year, my sister and I lovingly peeling them and placing them just right.

It was always a relief to turn the corner and see our house with the same lights and the same decorations and to know I was home. I can still feel the heft of my heavy pumpkin-shaped treat bag as we turned the corner onto our little street and saw our house.

One year, we turned the corner and the moon was just rising over the horizon. It was a harvest moon, those rare, uncanny occurences when the moon is pale orange and about 100 times larger than normal. I remember turning the corner, looking at my house and looking at the moon and going, yeah, this is Halloween.

Do you have any great childhood memories of Halloween? Share them in the comments!

Gore in the Workplace

Notice anything about this picture?

Oh yeah there's a severed hand on the cart!

While I am not usually a fan of blood and guts and gore, this is a tasteful sprinkle of gore that I find completely hilarious.

We call him Thing.

September 25 was the day that our lab started decorating for Halloween. We take this very seriously. Chris brought in his box of tricks, and in addition to the 8 brightly colored wigs we have lying around during the rest of the year, we now have a bag of tricks to entertain us through the hallways.

The best part about this severed hand? Nobody in class noticed it until about 3 hours into the lab. He has also been seen reading Obama's Audacity of Hope and pipetting some samples for us. If you're lucky you may get some follow-up pictures of what Thing is up to during the month...

So, what's your favorite unexpected Halloween decoration? Tell me in the comments!

Cooking Corner: Candy Corn Cookies

I. Love. Candy corn.

I will not deny it. It's sickening sweetness and fun colors just ooze halloween to me, and they sell them all year round!

Now, I am a weekend baker. I like to bake every chance I get, and I have probably been the cause of a lot of people's weight gain. But they love it. So today I want to share with you a recipe from Bake at 350, a wonderful baking blog I follow, for these cute little candy corn cookies. Dark black chocolaty, chewy, brownie-esque background with a chewy colorful candy corn on top, what's not to love?

They're the perfect little size too. Just little enough that you don't feel guilty having 5, or 6, or 7. Yet the batch only makes about 36, so it's the perfect amount of little sweetness to share with your friends without sending people home with tupperware.

I don't want to take credit for the recipe, so for that I will send you to Bake at 350's website, here: Candy Corn Cookies


So here's my question: What's your favorite Halloween candy? Do you find ways to put it in unexpected places?

My Halloween Aesthetic

Blood, gore? Not my thing. You may balk, you may cry "but Lynnea, how could you love Halloween and not love severed heads?!" but I stand by my preferences.

Scary movies? Not my thing. But Lynnea, you say, how can you have Halloween without scary movies? I stand by my preference.

You see, I prefer not to be grossed out or terrified on Halloween. I prefer the colors, the vibe, the fun, the pumpkins. I battled with this preference last year, trying to figure out just how to define the Halloween that I love. Was it vintagey? Yeah, kindof, but not entirely. Was it cute? Not really, what about spooky? Nothing really fit, until I found this:

www.killerpumpkins.com

This artist was at ComiCon and I just went yes. That. That is what I love about Halloween. The bright colors in contrast with the dark backdrop, things that glow and light up, things with a lot of color and a little bit of scary, but not too scary.

The feeling that these works of art give me, that's the feeling I love about Halloween, and that's the feeling I try to recreate at my house during the season.

Question: What's your Halloween aesthetic? Tell me (better yet, can you show me?) in the comments!

Getting Down the Boxes

 Any of you who were reading last year know that one of my favorite parts about Halloween is getting the boxes down from the attic.

Let me draw a picture for you. In my closet is the roof access, so on whatever day I bug my parents enough to get the ladder out, and bring it upstairs, we open the door and pull down about 8 different storage boxes chock full of goodies. It's like Christmas.

We bring all the boxes downstairs into our living room, dust them off (it's amazing how dusty a closed attic can be) and take inventory. Even though I've been doing this for years and know exactly what is in each box, it is still fun to look at and get giddy over all the things you haven't seen in one whole year.

Some of my favorite items include our Looney Tunes lightscapes.

My mother works for Warner Brothers, and one year when I was about 7 or 8, my mom brought home 5 different Halloween themed Looney Tunes lights, and my sister and I always fought over which one went on which side of the room. I always went for Daffy painted as a skeleton (who, sadly, was decapitated in a shipping accident in 07) and she always was torn between two Tweety ones, both of which somehow managed to survive.

While there are plenty of other fun decorations that grace those boxes (including but not limited to: cat/pumpkin Russian nesting dolls, old craft projects from elementary school, lights and wreaths) those Looney Tunes lights always were my favorite.

What are some of your favorite Halloween decorations? Tell me in the comments!

Welcome to Halloween Countdown 2010!

Hello and welcome to the start of the Halloween season! Who am I kidding, Halloween started for me in July, but October 1st marks the first day I can wear my ghost earrings without garnering second glances from other non-halloweenies.

This year I have prepared. I have written entries months in advance, I have a calendar and a plan. While there may be some delays due to, well, the life of a college student, this year holds a lot of good things for my loyal readers.

So I hope you'll join me in welcoming back my  6-legged arachnid mascot, and I hope you're as excited as I am for the Halloween season!

 So now's a good time to introduce you to one of the new features to make this blog better this year: questions! At the end of all my entries I'll pose a question to try to spur some conversation going and get you guys involved!

Today's question: What are YOU most excited about this Halloween? Tell me in the comments!