"Tender Lumplings everywhere/Life's No Fun Without a Good Scare"
This shaped up into the best Halloween we've had in some years: the three of us stayed healthy, and the weather held up for a much-welcomed change. Got up this morning, went to work to get my hours (shortish week next week, would have liked a few more hours, but I have a few days clear to write and work on housework), and checked out the newsstand: sure enough, our jack o'lantern jamboree made the front page of the Lowell Sun, just above the fold (the article can be found here: http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_29051894/pumpkin-paradise-tewksbury-father-and-daughter)! Showed it to my boss and a few co-workers (and now my boss knows what I was up to when I wasn't at work). Also picked up a few more bags of candy: we decided we might need a bit more since we were expecting more goblins this year. The candy in the bins at the front end of the store looked pretty picked over, down to three bins out of the six and they'd refilled the other three bins with bags and boxes of stuffing mix: getting the jump on Thanksgiving, it would seem, and the Mad Turkey Parade starts a leetle bit earlier each year (ie. people buying frozen turkeys).
Came home and carved two more turnip jack o'lanterns while watching the original Dark Shadows, which one of the local nostalgia stations is marathoning this weekend. Dad put up a bunch more assorted lights: green lights that he added to the spooky fence I put up along the driveway, creepy looking bare tree branches lit up with LED lights, pumpkin pails with tea lights in them hung up from tree branches, also set up our small fire pit for a bonfire - and moved the zombie flamingos to a more strategic spot (also, we're thinking of having a "Welcome to our Pumpkin Patch" sign made up next year to let folks know they're welcome to join us). Just before sundown, we lit the tealights in the pails and the turnip jack o'lanterns.
Sat outside and chilled, just enjoying the night and the light from the jack o'lanterns, the firelight and the atmosphere, and greeting whoever came along either trick or treating or coming along to take a closer look at our jack o'lanterns. Had about twelve goblins - a witch, a policegirl, a teeny fireman, a lone shy girl dressed as Mabel from Gravity Falls, a trio of teenaged boys dressed as a Boy Scout (one of my coworkers, if I'm not mistaken), a frat boy with Market Basket ginger ale cans strapped to his head, and a dog, two brothers dressed as a zombie and a zombie hunter, also two little guys with skull-like makeup, then a tired little guy dressed as Abraham Lincoln - and nine adults, including one older lady who saw the newspaper article and one guy who'd seen the video online, who was especially impressed with the turnip jack o'lanterns and the history behind them. The Goosebumps books were "a monster hit", in my dad's words, and we came close to emptying the bucket; the zombie brothers got the most excited over them, since they'd just seen the new movie in the theatre, which really made me feel good.
Late in the evening, I read a couple of spooky pieces for my folks: first, a crazy-spooky true ghost story from Dublin and then my soon-to-be published "We'll Leave the Lights On", which was a hit, though my mom likes my first story better, although, she liked the Twilight Zone-ish twist at the end.
Came home and carved two more turnip jack o'lanterns while watching the original Dark Shadows, which one of the local nostalgia stations is marathoning this weekend. Dad put up a bunch more assorted lights: green lights that he added to the spooky fence I put up along the driveway, creepy looking bare tree branches lit up with LED lights, pumpkin pails with tea lights in them hung up from tree branches, also set up our small fire pit for a bonfire - and moved the zombie flamingos to a more strategic spot (also, we're thinking of having a "Welcome to our Pumpkin Patch" sign made up next year to let folks know they're welcome to join us). Just before sundown, we lit the tealights in the pails and the turnip jack o'lanterns.
Sat outside and chilled, just enjoying the night and the light from the jack o'lanterns, the firelight and the atmosphere, and greeting whoever came along either trick or treating or coming along to take a closer look at our jack o'lanterns. Had about twelve goblins - a witch, a policegirl, a teeny fireman, a lone shy girl dressed as Mabel from Gravity Falls, a trio of teenaged boys dressed as a Boy Scout (one of my coworkers, if I'm not mistaken), a frat boy with Market Basket ginger ale cans strapped to his head, and a dog, two brothers dressed as a zombie and a zombie hunter, also two little guys with skull-like makeup, then a tired little guy dressed as Abraham Lincoln - and nine adults, including one older lady who saw the newspaper article and one guy who'd seen the video online, who was especially impressed with the turnip jack o'lanterns and the history behind them. The Goosebumps books were "a monster hit", in my dad's words, and we came close to emptying the bucket; the zombie brothers got the most excited over them, since they'd just seen the new movie in the theatre, which really made me feel good.
Late in the evening, I read a couple of spooky pieces for my folks: first, a crazy-spooky true ghost story from Dublin and then my soon-to-be published "We'll Leave the Lights On", which was a hit, though my mom likes my first story better, although, she liked the Twilight Zone-ish twist at the end.