This is Halloween?

 My favorite Halloween music video:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=this+is+halloween+voiceplay

Halloween, 2022.  Sort of didn't happen

Halloween has always been MY holiday.  I would look forward to it months in advance when I was a little girl.  Mom would help me make our house into a mini haunted walkthrough instead of just handing out candy.  She would also help us make costumes.  As a adult, I would start planning a costume somewhere around August.  When we lived in town, I would have a big Halloween party.

That faded when we moved out here - it was just a bit too far for most people.  And we had no trick-or-treaters.  But eventually we fell into helping out on the Haunted Trail at the museum, finally ending up being on the small team that designed, built, and ran it.  It was creatively exhilarating and exhausting.  But after about 15 years, we were all, well, 15 years older and a bit more tired.  And it was *too* successful.  It was fairly simple when we were running 300-400 people through a night.  When it starting hitting over 1000 it was overwhelming.  And then the woods that we ran it through got cut down (long and annoying story there).  So we gave it up.

But the old warhorse in me still itched (and itches) for Halloween.  Although we didn't do the trail, we did help out with the costume contest on the grounds, dressing up ourselves as well.

We couldn't do that for Halloween 2019, because Bob was on chemo and couldn't be around crowds.  And there was no Halloween Howl for 2020, because Covid.  Nor 2021, for the same reason.  This year - well, Halloween Howl has been permanently abandoned.  It became a money loser rather than a money maker after there was no longer our haunted trail.

A few miles from me there is a woman who has done a fairly elaborate fundraising haunt for several years.  I didn't check it out the last two years because - guess what? - Covid (Annie don't do crowds).  I thought that with Covid numbers down and five vaccines in me that I might volunteer this year.

She isn't doing it.

I wanted to try the method of making a Jack-o'-Lantern where you drill some holes where you want the features to be, stuffing in some peanut butter, and putting out for the squirrels.  Some of the posts online look nicely disturbing:

But when I drove into town Saturday (to take a D&D class but that's another story) there were no "pumpkin patches."  There weren't even any at the grocery store today.

There was still a glimmer of why I love this holiday.  After work I went out for a sandwich before I went grocery shopping (so I wouldn't empty the shelves into my cart) and my order was taken by Wonder Woman.  There was a pirate sitting at a table, and at Publix the guy bagging groceries was wearing a Marvel costume, complete with cape.e

So tonight I started watching a TV series based on "The Haunting of Hill House" (because I can't find the old Julie Christy one anywhere) and ate some Halloween candy.  And, just to show willing, I did set out a dish of bread and milk, and one of brandy (the fae have to be posh tonight - I didn't have any whiskey).

Maybe next year I'll do something.