It’s true.
It’s Halloween day itself, and there’s nary a pumpkin, skeleton, or ghostly craft to be found on the premises. Quite possibly the scariest thing around these parts is the fact that I have a bathtub that hasn’t been scrubbed since we moved in…
(Nope, it’s definitely the wooden hands… I know, I just KNOW that one day I’ll be sitting at home alone and I’ll hear those slender wooden fingers begin to move: tap tap tap…)
But really, I do suck at Halloween.
Let me explain:
Growing up, Halloween wasn’t a big thing in our family.
Costumes? Yes – all the time, October 31st or not. Our dress-up trunk was extensive, our imaginations even more so, our photographic history of said costumes/imagination not so much.
Trick or treating? Never. We lived out in the country. Door to door was not an option, except for the occasional oddly persistent salesmen.
Fall festival at our church? Some years. Different families ran different booths with games and candy prizes. One booth was a kitten booth – take a kitten, get candy. All of the kids loved it. The parents did not. That’s where I got my Abby-girl…
Candy? Ha. My parents had a buy-back program where we gullible children traded our delicious delectable white-sugar-poison for cold hard cash (pennies and nickels, I believe). Of course this could be why I’ve never had a cavity, but it’s not for lack of trying to catch up on my sugar consumption ever since 🙂
All that is to say, Halloween just doesn’t hold much nostalgic appeal for me. There’s no warm and fuzzy deep-seated need for me to strew my home, yard, or person with orange and black adornments or pumpkins with gap-toothed grins. I find the colors of the holiday, specifically the combination of purple and orange, fairly displeasing.
So call me the Grinch of Halloween. The Scrooge of October 31st. Bah humbug.
I don’t have any kiddos to delight and terrify with creative crafts and snacks and decorations. And just like last year and the year before that, I’ll be at work All Hallow’s Eve. Instead of benevolently dispensing candy from my undecorated front porch, I get to be a real life force of evil as I make my piano students stay inside and practice their Christmas-recital pieces when they would rather be running around outside with their sugar crazed friends. Muahahaha.
So no Halloween for this girl this year. Maybe one day I will see the error of my ways and the joy of the jack-o-lantern. Maybe one day my children will ecstatically embrace pumpkins in their adorable handmade mouse costumes:
But not this year. Because I suck at Halloween.
But you know who doesn’t suck at Halloween?
Trisha from Black and White Obsession with her crazy awesome DIY Zombie Lego costume:
Dria from DIO Home Improvements with her insanely detailed & crazy cool DIY Halloween props (warning: they are pretty dang SCARY!):
Julia from Cuckoo4Design with her creepy yet crazy stylish medical-themed Modern & Fresh Halloween décor:
And Megan from Rental Revival with her suggestions for creative costumes you can pull together from items you probably already have in your closet. Seriously folks, I have no excuse! If you need a last minute costume idea, please someone go as a hipster zombie (and send me pictures!)
(If you love these ideas, like I’m sure you do, please visit their sites to pin from the original post, *not* this blog post!)
Yep. I suck at Halloween. But I make a pretty cute little mouse… So. I have that going for me.
What about you? Do you go all out for Halloween or save it for Christmas?
Yes, you are a very cute mouse and I'd like to have a wooden hand myself. Thanks for the shout out!
It makes me actually sad that they gave the kittens to everyone like that. I don't even want to know how many had to die or live a horrible life because of this. So sad. But I love that your Abby has a great home and she is mighty cute how she sleeps. Happy Birthday Halloween Kitty!
My sister adopted one of the kitties as well, so Abby's sister "Precious" has also always had a good home and a spoiled life – good thing my parents are such softies! 🙂
You Halloween decorations are so inspiring – thanks for letting me share!
I am terrible at Halloween too. This is the first year I have done any decorations outside of carving pumpkins with the kids. I'm trying to get better about it, but we live in a pretty spread out neighborhood as well. We have to travel to grandma's house or friends' houses to trick or treat. Don't feel discouraged. I can totally relate:)
~Katie @ Addicted2DIY
Thanks Katie – there are so many holidays packed into the end-of-the-year, it can be hard to keep up with them all! But I bet having kids who get excited about it makes it a lot more fun 🙂
I like Halloween, but have never had much luck in the trick or treater department- every house I've lived in has been in a strange location that apparently deters them. So I don't do much decorating because no one is going to see it besides our neighbors and myself/husband. Maybe once our son is older we'll do a little more decorating. I just do a general fall themed decorating and call it good. Now, Christmas on the other hand- watch out. People around here go all out for Christmas- we even have a Christmas parade in our town…on December 1st. Thanksgiving pretty much gets shoved out of the way for Christmas- crazy.
http://www.davenportdiy.com
Emily, I'm so very excited to decorate for Christmas 🙂 We'll see if Thanksgiving gets a fair share of the attention or not, haha!
Thanksgiving decorations are just kinda silly. Christmas is where it's at!
But I like "harvest" stuff way better than halloween decor – I still have to milk those clearance foxes from Target for all they're worth this season!
Thanks for the feature Brynne! We didn't do much this year either. Cheers to the bah humbug!
Thanks for letting me share 🙂
Lol, join the "Halloween Humbug" club, as Becky dubbed it!
Thanks for the mention 🙂 I actually kinda suck at Halloween too. I ended up doing a half-assed costume, even though I advised my readers on some way better ideas. I wasn't really feeling it when it came to Oct. 31 this year. It was kind of fun to have my first trick-or-treaters though! Now that I live in a house in a neighborhood, I got to hand out candy, which was cute.
You make a darn cute mousey! hehehe.
Yay trick-or-treaters 🙂 I got home from work early with a terrible headache and just feeling extra cranky and humbuggy, so I'll admit I just turned the lights off, closed the curtains, and hoped no one would ring the doorbell, lol! Maybe next year I can be a good neighbor!