About Me

I didn't celebrate Halloween very much as a child. In my case, Halloween depended on convincing one of my parents to take me trick or treating, and neither of them was particularly interested in volunteering for the job. I can only remember one time when my mother took me, and I don't remember ever going with my father.

My oldest sister took me when I was about five years old. I was dressed as Strawberry Shortcake, which seems like a pretty appropriate costume for a five year old. When I was around seven, our neighbors took me trick or treating while we were living in another city. I believe I was dressed as a clown, although apparently the photographic evidence has not yet surfaced to confirm this important historical detail.

Halloween mattered to me when I was little, but eventually it became just another day.

After my parents divorced, there really wasn't anyone to take me. My mother worked a lot, and my father never came to pick me up. By then, my siblings were all adults, so I was essentially on my own. Halloween night usually meant staying home and watching Tales from the Crypt or whatever other horror related entertainment happened to be on cable television.

Honestly, that was probably my version of trick or treating: candy from the kitchen and horror on the television.

The first Halloween after my parents separated is one I remember particularly well. My mother let me buy some wonderfully cheesy Halloween decorations from Alpha Beta, a now defunct grocery store. We had a tiny tree in front of our apartment, and I bought a plastic skeleton that was no bigger than my arm and hung it from the tree. I also bought fake cobwebs and stretched them through the tree and around the bushes in front of our apartment.

And that was it.

My entire Halloween display consisted of one tiny skeleton and a questionable amount of fake cobwebs.

But I loved it.

My First Knott's Scary Farm

In 1990, when I was about twelve, my friend Alethea D. had an older brother who worked at Knott's Berry Farm. She was able to get us into Knott's Scary Farm for free.

I was terrified.

I remember holding onto my friends and keeping my eyes closed because apparently I had decided that the best way to survive a horror attraction was simply not to look at anything happening around me.

I was still a little too immature for horror.

Then, in 1993, my first boyfriend, Michael G., took me to Knott's Scary Farm. This time, I had a great time. I was fifteen years old, and there was a big difference between being scared with your friends and being scared with someone who made you feel safe.

Apparently, I had finally reached the appropriate age for monsters.

Halloween With My Kids

My daughter, Sienna, was born in December 1996. By Halloween 1997, she wasn't even a year old yet, so trick or treating wasn't exactly on the agenda. I didn't pass out candy either, but I did dress her up as a little pumpkin.

Her brothers, who were born after her, followed the same tradition. Their first Halloweens also involved adorable little pumpkin costumes.

Eventually, Halloween became something I genuinely enjoyed because I got to experience it with my children. Trick or treating, costumes, decorations and all the little traditions that come with having kids made Halloween fun again.

And then, as children tend to do, they grew up.

A New Chapter

In 2016, I moved to Hawaii. Trevor was my boyfriend at the time, and we weren't living together. He lived on the other side of the island, so Halloween wasn't something we were able to celebrate together that year. Instead, I passed out candy with my housemates.

The following year, we were living together in our own place. Times were difficult in Kalihi, Hawaii, though, and we didn't pass out candy that year.

Then came January 1, 2018, when we moved to Oregon with little more than our luggage.

By April, we had our own place again, and Halloween eventually found its way back into our lives.

That's when I really began to see how much Trevor enjoyed it.

We started decorating and passing out candy, and Trevor became especially enthusiastic about making Halloween fun for the neighborhood kids. He wanted to go all out.

And there is a reason for that.

Trevor had spent many years in prison before we met, and during that time he missed out on the ordinary family experiences and holidays that so many people take for granted. He didn't get to celebrate holidays with his children the way he would have wanted.

Now that those years are behind him, he has something he didn't have before:

time.

Time to celebrate. Time to decorate. Time to make memories. Time to enjoy the holidays.

And Halloween happens to be one of his favorites.

He really does like to go all out.

And Now...

I have come a long way from the little girl who had to hope somebody would take her trick or treating, to the teenager who watched horror movies on cable, to the mother putting her children in pumpkin costumes, and finally to the wife who gets to watch her husband transform Halloween into an event.

What started as a holiday I barely got to experience has become one of my favorite times of year.

So I've decided to document it.

This blog is a place for the photographs, decorations, memories, costumes, stories, traditions and wonderfully ridiculous Halloween moments that have accumulated along the way.

Because sometimes the holidays we don't get to enjoy as children become the ones we appreciate the most as adults.

And sometimes, all it takes is the right person to make Halloween feel magical.

Happy Hauntings! 🎃👻🕷️