HALLOWEEN MEMORIES - Page 5

kittykatkay · ‎02-25-2011

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WORKING GAL · ‎11-15-2011

@walker- I also grew up in the 50's in a neighborhood like yours in South Jersey in a suburban area. The night before Halloween was called "Mischief Night". My brother was in high school (7 yrs. older than me) and he and his friends would go out and put soap in fountains, soap house windows and car windows, egg cars, etc.

I was young and not allowed out after dark. My best friend's sister was in high school and went to a lot of formal dances. One year my friend and I wore her fancy dresses with a tiara and were princesses. There was one lady around the corner and she always baked gingersnaps and gave out 5 in a Halloween napkin.

They were the best cookies and we always went there. Such memories. Safe times back then. Not like today. So sad.

Enufstuff · ‎03-12-2010

@kittykatkay@PamfromCT@group 5 minus 1

When my five children were growing up, I always made cookies for holidays. One Halloween, I spent an entire afternoon making

chocolate cookies and then decorating them with orange frosting

and chocolate Jack o lantern faces.

I put the cookies on a large tray and I intended those cookies to be for family and my daughters' friends. After dinner, I took my three little girls, dressed as witches, in the costumes that I made,

out to the neighborhood for Trick or Treat.

My husband stayed home with the baby and gave out candy to the Trick or Treaters. This was a neighborhood with a lot of families and I was prepared to give candy to about 100 children.

In about an hour, I returned home with my girls and their loot.

I could not believe that there was not one cookie left on the tray. I asked my husband what happened and he said that he ran out of candy, and gave the cookies to Trick or Treaters.

I was not happy. He should have just turned off the porch light.

The cookies were unwrapped and I can only imagine what became of those cookies that I had spent most of the day on.

They probably became a pile of crumbs in the bottoms of the bags. My kids and their friends were not able to have them.

My ex-husband never even boiled water, so he had no clue what was involved in baking and decorating cookies. He never appreciated all that I did.

I never let him forget that Halloween.

Enufstuff · ‎03-12-2010

@kittykatkay@Group minus1@AuntG@Daisy Sunflower

@Cakers3 @Karie2022@On It @PamfromCT @catter70@ciao_bella@walker@FlyersGirl @just bee

Back in 1976, most people would put out a pumpkin or Jack o lantern and maybe some Halloween cutouts in the window.

There was not all the decorating that people do today.

But, the day before Halloween, I thought that it might be fun to do a haunted house. No one around here was doing anything like that and my 5 kids loved Halloween as much as Christmas.

I went to the 5 and 10 and bought a Haunted House record and put my stereo speakers in the windows. I pulled together, things from our Halloween trunk and put something spooky in each room. I put up a poster at the corner store to invite kids to come.

As kids entered the front door, they could see a glow in the dark life size skeleton in the closet. Enter the living room and there were crepe paper spider webs that I made and rubber spiders. There were hanging bats and a ghost that I made out of a sheer white curtain over a wreath on the wall, with little lights under the curtain and a skull mask in the center of the wreath. There was a rocking chair that rocked, with no one sitting there.

As they continued through the TV room, they were each given a little cup of vampire blood to drink. It was Hawiian Punch with grape eyeballs in it. (There were no plastic eyeballs

or candy eyeballs back then.)

As they passed by the gated off bedroom, they could look in and see a seated devil, with glowing red eyes holding a pitchfork. It was actually my husbands rain gear, pants and a hooded jacket

stuffed, with a Light Brite with two red lights in the hood and behind the devil mask.

The last room was the kitchen. On my 6 foot long table was a dead Frankenstein. It was a stuffed dummy with a Frankenstein mask and work boots. I had little dishes that the kids could feel, if they wanted to feel Frankenstein's brain ( a wet sponge), his eyeballs (peeled grapes) and intestines (cold, cooked spaghetti).

Then they got their candy and could exit the back door.

The kids loved it!

My husband was outside on the sidewalk, with a tuxedo jacket

covering his head, so he looked headless. Under one arm, he held my wigstand head, with a wig on it. He waved to all the kids and motioned for them to come in.

Some went screaming down the street, but most came in. The parents loved it so much, they went and got their friends and kids to come in again. We had over 100 kids visit.

The next year, we did it again and added a strobe light and my two aunts came as witches to give out the vampire blood drinks and they made 200 handwritten fortunes, wrapped around pennies to give out. So, we know that we had over 200

visitors.

My kids are in their 40's and 50's now, but their friends that they grew up with still talk about how they loved our Haunted House.

LuvSoCal · ‎07-18-2010

I went to parochial school so the day after was always a school holiday. One of us classmates would have a slumber party and we'd have the best time after trick or treating. We would go through our candy,do some trading, play with the ouji board, have seances, dance, eat,eat,eat, make prank calls to the boys in our class and stay up until the wee hours. As a little one I had to be something cute or pretty and always had a store bought costume but after I got to be around 10 yrs old it was more fun to put something together from whatever we had on hand. Our school also had a fall festival around that time which was really fun to attend.

PamfromCT · ‎05-22-2014

We lived in a neighborhood with many houses on many streets. I went out with my little brother, with pillowcases for all the candy. We got so much candy that at one point we went home to empty our goody bags that were getting too heavy to make room for more. What an exciting time it was!

Looking back, those were the days when times were safer and kids had much more freedom.

Kalli · ‎03-11-2010

@Mombo1 wrote:
@Kalli wrote:
@kittykatkay we made our own costumes, too! I remember using a pillowcase for our candy. Halloween was as big to me as Christmas. And because we went to parochial school, we always had off school the day after Trick or Treating.

So, the next morning while it was still dark, we'd go down to the living room. My older brother, older sis and I would sit cross legged in a circle on the rug, dump our pillow cases out in front of us and then the trading began.

Looking back, I was probably not really very smart with my trades, since I loved candy corn and traded away many nice chocolate bars for those. But it was so much fun!

@Kalli We sound like the same family ! My older brother and sister also did the trade in the morning. And yes...we went out with pillowcases. There was enough candy to feed an army for a year. The only thing I really wanted was M&Ms. or Three Musketeers bars. So my brother and sister made out pretty good.

@Mombo1 , glad to hear you had the same experiences! I loved Halloween. It was so much fun!

I'm #3 out of 7 kids. I can't imagine growning up without my siblings. There was always someone to play with. We are fortunate to have such wonderful memories, aren't we?

Mombo1 · ‎11-02-2015

@Kalli wrote:
@Mombo1 wrote:
@Kalli wrote:
@kittykatkay we made our own costumes, too! I remember using a pillowcase for our candy. Halloween was as big to me as Christmas. And because we went to parochial school, we always had off school the day after Trick or Treating.

So, the next morning while it was still dark, we'd go down to the living room. My older brother, older sis and I would sit cross legged in a circle on the rug, dump our pillow cases out in front of us and then the trading began.

Looking back, I was probably not really very smart with my trades, since I loved candy corn and traded away many nice chocolate bars for those. But it was so much fun!

@Kalli We sound like the same family ! My older brother and sister also did the trade in the morning. And yes...we went out with pillowcases. There was enough candy to feed an army for a year. The only thing I really wanted was M&Ms. or Three Musketeers bars. So my brother and sister made out pretty good.
@Mombo1 , glad to hear you had the same experiences! I loved Halloween. It was so much fun!

I'm #3 out of 7 kids. I can't imagine growning up without my siblings. There was always someone to play with. We are fortunate to have such wonderful memories, aren't we?

@Kalli I was the middle child of 3... We had so much fun as kids. We grew up in a neighborhood of wonderful friendly neighbors. Parents watched out for everyone's kids and we always felt safe and cared for. Today....things have changed dramatically in our world. I'm just thankful that I had the childhood that I did when things were simple. Yes we are fortunate to have such wonderful memories.