It's that time again - Halloween is right around the corner. Candy, Trick-or-Treating, festivals, Haunted Houses, and all sorts of fun barely half a month away. (I'm really surprised that we don't have this thread yet...) I'm curious as to what everybody does on Halloween, and what they are doing this year.

Actually, this topic is a mish-mash of everything Halloween -
Favorite Halloween-Exclusive Candy / Least Favorite
What you're doing for Halloween
Trick-or-Treating
Haunted Houses
Festivals
Do you even participate?
Best Halloween Experience?
Worst Halloween Experience?


Okay, so. Not everybody participates in Halloween - that's fine. Why don't you? Do you want to? Does Halloween look like fun? It's fun for me, usually. Normally, we go to Haunted Houses and we wonder around town and just enjoy ourselves. It's the one night of the year when staying up late is A-OK. And we totally enjoy that. (We being myself and my friends.)

My least favorite Halloween-Exclusive candy is the Orange KitKat. My stepdad has a fit over them every year, to the point where it's almost dangerous to be around when those things come out. So I don't like them x.x

My favorite Halloween-Exclusive candy is... actually, I don't have one. I can't think of a Halloween-Exclusive candy that I actually like. Because, I haven't really tried many and most everything I like, I can get outside of holiday times. (Easter is a different question...)

I don't ToT any more because of my age, but it's still fun to be out and about during the ToTing hours because that's when everything else is going on too. Festivals, Haunted Houses, and all sorts of things... I look forward to it every year. But this year, I probably won't be participating. Money is an enormous issue. (Although, when I get a job... I'll have a ton of extra.)

And Haunted Houses have gotten /way/ too expensive. I mean, come on - you add a few strobe lights, people in costumes, and that's it. Why must you charge 15 dollars per person, too? I swear... I'm going to open my own Haunted House just so that I can charge less and attract more people.

So yea - Rant about your Halloween!

Being a candy addict, Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year (the other being Easter :p)

When I was a kid, it was all about getting free candy. Now, it's about buying candy for "Trick-Or-Treaters" that never actually show up and then having no choice but to eat the candy myself :p

I don't think I have a favorite Halloween-exclusive candy. The candy I eat around this time of year is always just regular candy you can find any other time... just in fun sized wrapping. The closest would be Halloween variants on normal candy... like Halloween-themed Peeps or orange and black cotton candy.

My least favorite is easy though. Candy corn. Now I used to really like candy corn at first... but after you eat more than a little, it just becomes sickening so now I kinda hate it.

I'm still a kid at heart, so if I was ever in some other neighborhood, I might just go and Trick-or-Treat anyway. I'm a tiny person, so I could probably pass as a kid in the right costume. I just need to make sure no one there knows me to know how old I really am :p

I do like dressing up every year though. For me, it's more of another excuse to cosplay, though. I rarely stick to the traditional Halloween theme unless I can integrate it with something else I like to dress up as. Like there's a video game character I like who has an alt costume in her game that is kinda Halloween-ish, so I did that variation one year.

I've never actually lived anywhere that had a Haunted House attraction. My neighborhood has always been kinda plain and boring. The most creative was this one guy who would try to scare kids every year. Each time, he came up with a new trick to surprise him. The first time I encountered him, he jumped out of a trashcan. The next year, he replaced the scarecrow that always sat in a chair on his front porch each Halloween with himself and started moving when people came close. That sorta thing...

Crazy Li :

I have to agree with you on the fact that Candy Corn can get sickening; however, I haven't gotten sick of it yet. I just only eat a little each year. (lol!) It's too sweet. Then again, it's also a sugar-treat. So, yeah...

As for the guy that tries to scare people... that's pretty cool that at least somebody tries. I know it seems like he could put more effort in, but thing is, they're kids. And some scare easy and others don't. So he has to find a medium that works for everybody around.

As I got older, I really did not participate much in Halloween. I wanted to go to costume parties or something, but my friends are either boring and do nothing, or they were going somewhere you had to pay a cover charge which seems silly to me. Instead, I resort to wearing an old costume when giving out candy.

In High School, we had a Halloween bash each year that I started going to when I was a Sophomore. THAT was pretty fun, even if all I really did was chat with friends and pig out on the treats offered.

There was one year a friend of mine said her mother was going to make costumes from the game "Ragnarok Online" for us so we could go as a matching pair: the monsters Bongun and Munak. (Her being Munak, I being Bongun). But then she started having issues, I kept asking her when I should go over for measurements, she said not today. Then when I asked once more, she said "It is too late! You took to long getting to me, and she does not have time anymore to make a second costume!" God, that was annoying. We are not friends anymore, though that was not the sole issue, it just was part of the type of friendship we had. Good riddance!

This year, I will be working until 6pm, and after that, I probably will tend to any straggling trick-or-treaters. My sister wants to dress up our dog for Halloween, but I do not know what for exactly.

ruesen :

Friends like that annoy me. Thankfully, I've never had to really worry about that type thing because I have a very limited friend-base.

I've never been to a Halloween Bash of any sort... or any real celebration of Halloween. Except Haunted Houses. Which always have a massive fee so I don't get to go to those often... never mind the fact that they really aren't that fun. :/ (I mean, I haven't been to one yet that is truly scary.)

I might dress up my dog next year... but not this year. Not enough money. lol

Ktanaqui :

Yeah, I am actually surprised we stayed friend for as long as we did. There were times where she would make whiny posts on her livejournal (this was before Facebook and MySpace) about wanting to hang out with people, so I would offer. She would then ignore me, because apparently, she only wanted certain people to hang out with. Still cannot believe I tolerated her so long.

The Halloween bash (also called a "Masquerade" later on) consisted of students paying about 5 dollars to go to the event, where there would be costume contests, snack tables, and a DJ that played all of last year's hits. The costume contest and socializing was more fun in my opinion. Costume contests' categories were "Most Unique," "Best Group," "Best Pair," and "Scariest Costume." My friend and I WANTED to do the best pair costume till that little fiasco with her, but to be honest, I doubt we would have won even if things did work out. The contest typically was won by the popular people or people that the popular people wanted. One time, the "Most Unique" costume went to a dude that just had on a Frankenstein mask.

Not that it was always so bad though... some years, the popular people noticed good costumes. A guy dressed as a fish tank won Most Unique another year. Now THAT was impressive! Best group usually was only won by popular people; one year a bunch of them dressed in diapers and bibs for a baby theme, and they beat out people that went as the Mario cast (Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, and Bowser!). That bothered me since even people that do not play video games should know Mario to some extent. That's high school for you!

I honestly am against dressing dogs up in general, but I figure for special occasions it is all right. If it was up to my sister, she would have my poor dog Faith dressed up in different outfits every day. We just resorted to once on her birthday, once on Halloween, and maybe a bell collar for Christmas. My sister managed to put a jersey on Faith for when my sis was doing a bike ride to raise money for MS. If I was not exhausted from work that day and actually went, I probably would have taken that off of her.

ruesen :

Yeah, I probably would have kicked her off my friends' list quicker than you did if she was my friend :p I could not have tolerated her like you did. She's one of those "fake" friends. Regardless... at least you got out of it later.

As far as the Halloween Bash goes - sounds like it had as least some fun to it. I never get to attend anything like that around here... Even if I did, it wouldn't be enjoyable for me anyhow. Everything is about rap and the like around here - nothing actually decent or interesting. "Gangstas," Rap, Drugs, Sex...

Now, dressing up pets? I'm not against it but I think the dressing-them-up constantly is unnecessary. My Shih-Tzu has /never/ been dressed up. And I question whether he ever will be, since he has so much hair already. MAYBE if I completely trim it off...

For me my favorite Halloween candies would probably be Milky Ways, Skittles, and Twix. But I don't really go trick or treating anymore so I don't have any news about recent halloweens. But in previous Halloweens, I usually walked around about 2 or 3 neighborhoods looking for candy with my two younger siblings, my parents, my aunt, and my little cousin. I don't really go to festivals or haunted houses. All of my Halloween experiences have been pretty much the same so I don't really have a best or worst Halloween experience.

Halloween is in 7 days and I haven't even thought of a Halloween costume to wear. Any suggestions? I usually go for more unique costumes.
~
Last year I was Colonel Sanders. It was mildly ironic because I never ate at KFC, and I still don't.

I hand out candy, but that's about it for my enjoyment of the holiday. There are very few parties around here for such a thing, and I have never really enjoyed Trick or Treating.

My favorite Halloween candy, though, are Hershey's Kisses. My least favorite are hard candies.

In a bit of contrasting irony, my girlfriend loves Halloween. It's her favorite holiday of the year because she loves to dress up, so she keeps trying to get me to dress up as well.


Not gonna happen!

Tonight I went to my sister's boyfriends house and ate candy, watched movies and ate Chinese food. It was pretty great. This weekend I'm having a belated Halloween party at my house, I'm going to dress up as a witch and make snacks for everyone.