Kevin's Watch

So what, if anything, are Watch members doing for Halloween this year?
I know we have people from different places in the world so I'd love to hear what other around you do if you yourself don't do anything.
What are your traditions?
Does anyone decorate, inside, outside or both?
Anyone like to host a party? Are costumes required/requested?
Anyone taking their kids out trick or treating?

I love Halloween!
I like to build unique props and decorate my yard with some kind of theme.
I start with buying a mask and then building a figure for it out of PVC for the body frame and then old clothes or fabric for the look.

One year I had the 4 Universal Monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman....wait, sorry I never got around to the Mummy. So 3 out of 4.
I did pick up a Creature from the Black Lagoon mask one year but I never made a figure out of it.
One year was Witches. I had about 6 Witches placed around my front yard, made a cauldron....I love Witches.
Last year was pumpkin based. About 2 dozen of those plastic lightup pumpkins of all different shapes and sizes with some grave stones and other stuff.
One year I made a small dock and had a pirate skeleton display.
Graveyard and zombie theme too.

This year is pumpkin patch based again but I made a Pumpkin Headed Skeleton....thing. Here's a pic so far. It has a lit up pumpkin staff as well.
It will stand up via a pole in the ground that goes up to a fixture I made on the back.
Originally I was going for an "evil" look but he ended up looking kinda happy I think. Which is fine because all the pumpkins in the yard are smiling too.

Lots of lights and sounds thanks to LED spotlights and a water proof bluetooth speaker.

I have fun and I hope I can give kids a good memory.

My wife, my daughter and I are watching one Halloween movie a night for the month. We each pick a film and the others have to politely watch without complaint.

I enjoy Halloween also.
The costumes, the candy, the terrorizing of kids,...
However, this year I will be "zoo-sitting" for a friend at their house.
I refer it as zoo-sitting because there are 4 dogs, 2 cats,
3 fish tanks, a bearded dragon, and a parrot.
Bonus is that there is always plenty of beer and food, and
a nice private swimming pool.
This is my R&R about every month or so.

Hahaha, TOM, given your Christmas set-up, I'm amazed you're not painting the house black and stringing up a gallery of skeletons.

It was never a South African thing when I was growing up, but y'know, given western cultural market hegemony ( ) it's becoming more common now, with parties and certainly trick or treating in, lets say "safe" areas. (Read enclosed suburbs / developments for rich white (well to be fair, and rich black) people.)

Elsewhere, it's not much of a thing beyond stuff like themed night-club parties and such. Basically any way they can try and convince consumers to consume a little more. But that's about the extent of it.

--A

I've always loved Halloween.
This year, I am making a costume for my son who loves Horizon Zero Dawn, which is a videogame. And if there is enough stuff left over, I'll make a costume for myself. The main character in the game is female, but there are a ton of males in the game to draw inspiration from, and so I am making it in the spirit of. I'm starting to find the parts of it all now, and it is coming together, but fake fur and real leather are expensive, so it may have just been cheaper to get a dumb costume from a shop. But this will be much more rewarding.
I hope.

For those who have not played the game, the world is made up of different "tribes," and borrow from looks from the past - Scottish looking (think Braveheart) looks for one tribe, Aztec-looking guys for another, European armored for another, Native American for another, and on and on. This is a slight spoiler that is ruined within the first 30 minutes of playing the game, perhaps even sooner, is that this isn't the past, but the future, and it is discovered when the dad figure teaches you to hunt a robot. The robots are similar to beasts in our world, and it becomes clear that this is our world in the future. References to Utah, Colorado and Wyoming become clear further into the game (in fact, the ruins of Mile High Stadium is in the game).
The costumes are made up of pelts as they hunt animals such as foxes, rabbits, goats, etc, but tied together with wires and pieces of the outer shells of these robots. I think when I spotted one character holding together articles of clothing with a carabiner was when I started to suspect this wasn't the past.
So, I found some cheap plastic pieces to toss together and hold together with old Cat 5 cables (stripping off the outer cord to get to the colored cords underneath). Strips of leather will be used to make up some aspects and add to the overall look. My biggest problem has been finding cheap pieces of plastic that look a little robot like that is easy to cut hole into to put together. I found some cheapy "warrior" costumes at the dollar store that include bracers and "armor" that all look similar, but just need to be painted white to make it look right. I'm trying to figure out inspiration without spending a ton, but more than anything else, I could really use more cheap plastic stuff that works. Any ideas welcome, and it is probably going to be a bear to put together in a way that my son could quickly get into and out of the costume. It is already looking pretty cool, and I lucked out at a craft store finding a bunch of fake fur remnant in the bargain bin. Using beads from my daughter's jewelry making kit and bought a little bag of feathers that look perfect. I saw some imitation sinew for stitching at a craft store, but was too expensive for as little as they gave.
Anyway, so far it seems to be coming together pretty well, and I hope there is enough stuff left over for me, as it would be fun to also dress up for this.

Etsy is a pretty good resource for crafty stuff, but not necessarily cheap.

I love Halloween, but generally don't go beyond putting costume ideas together in my head. I live in the sort of neighborhood where kids don't go door-to-door, and any decorations would immediately be stolen and/or vandalized.

Always like to see other peoples' costumes and decorations and whatnot. The movie idea sounds fun too.

That all sounds pretty cool! Halloween was non-existent growing up in my part of Australia. But in the last 10(?) years or so, it has started to become a thing - with neighbourhood kids trick or treating, and some houses being decorated. I'll be interested to see what happens this year. There seems to be gathering momentum.

I'd love to have a Halloween party - might have to try and organise one.

We dont really DO Halloween like you guys do .. yeah some is seen ... We used to run a youth group so we capitalised on Halloween, any activity to make some fun .. we decorate the hall all spooky ... hold fun Halloween games and activities. And DRESS UP ... I love dressing up and even if we do nothing here .. we will carve a pumpkin and dress up .. maybe go visit friends or dress up pub crawl.

I had a great time with Halloween when I was a kid and even a young adult but there came a time when I felt the holiday (mostly due to a reflection of popular horror films) became a reflection of the worst in human behavior. Modern Halloween tropes had more in common with true life horrors than supernatural characters and it damaged my ability to enjoy the event given the grim headlines of the day. However I still make the effort each year to have fun any way I can and when selecting Halloween movies I tend to focus on ghosts and monsters.

Yeah, Halloween should be about black cats and pumpkins and eating too much candy. And dressing up, of course. We're allowed to wear costumes to work (at least in previous years - new boss, so not sure this year) - but nobody ever does, which is disappointing. Back when I worked at bookstores, almost everybody would be in costume. It was a lot of fun.

Maybe I need to start going to conventions again. I need an excuse to wear my Starfleet uniform for a day.

Heh. Halloween was the only time I ever wore my star fleet uniform. Mine is Next Gen.. I have a phaser, tricorder and comm badge but I always meant to get a full TOS costume but never have.

Weird.

--A

Avatar wrote:Weird.

--A

Why is that weird?? (or are you just teasing him?)

That's what Halloween is all about.
It's fun.

aTOMiC wrote:Heh. Halloween was the only time I ever wore my star fleet uniform. Mine is Next Gen.. I have a phaser, tricorder and comm badge but I always meant to get a full TOS costume but never have.

I think you posted a pic once - yellow, right? Engineering or security? Mine goes with my avatar. Basically movie era (original II-VI) minus the white undershirt. I don't have any props except for a comm badge though.


And yes, Halloween gives you full license to be as weird and/or geeky as you desire.

High Lord Tolkien wrote:Why is that weird?? (or are you just teasing him?)

That's what Halloween is all about.
It's fun.

Just teasing.

But I thought All Hallows Eve began the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints, martyrs, and the faithful departed.

--A

Avatar wrote:
But I thought All Hallows Eve began the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints, martyrs, and the faithful departed.

--A

I think Christianity just did their old trick of stealing holidays from other religions.

Now we're going to trigger a Wiccan to respond with what Halloween really means...

And they're wrong too.

It's all about fun costumes, candy, Frankenstein, Vampires, zombies, LED black lights, witches (witches like from the movie Hocus Pocus) and The Great Pumpkin.

Well, of course they did. But I think there's food for thought in your answer too...it seems characteristic of humans to simply pick and choose the bits they like, and pretend the rest isn't there or doesn't matter.

Probably the basis of the evolution of ideology etc.

--A

High Lord Tolkien wrote: It's all about fun costumes, candy, Frankenstein, Vampires, zombies, LED black lights, witches (witches like from the movie Hocus Pocus) and The Great Pumpkin.

You left out fog machines, jump scares and fake blood, but otherwise, yeah, that's Halloween to me. With an occasional tingle of creepiness here and there.
Here's the kids and the completed Horizon Zero Dawn costume that I mostly put together.

(Crud...can't seem to link to a Facebook picture I uploaded. Working on it.
Edit: never mind, I posted it sideways into the Album under Motley Crew, because I give up).

Fun but trying. And I went over the $30 self-imposed limit because we invested in a glue gun, which was probably the one thing that kept me from giving up and setting it on fire during the final week of preparations.

Halloween? It was like a day in February. 4 inches of heavy "heart attack " snow fell before I could get home and clear off the porch. Two girls came by when I was cleaning the snow off and not another all night. Got some Twix to eat.

Yeah. It rained a few days right up to Halloween morning and on the day itself the winds were strong enough to keep a few of my props inside.
The rain also got my outlets wet enough to trip the breaker so I only had one side of my yard lit up.

It was 70 degrees too which was really strange because the day before and the day after it was only in the 50's.
I didn't expect many kids but there was a fairly good turnout.