I was like 9 and in a new school. My aunt died in a car crash that October. Days later, we’re at the most famous haunted house in the city, my parents had agreed to something months prior.

Anyway, 9 years old, horror house, haunted secret hallways, scary basements. October.

I don’t know what that means but, it always makes me feel something.

When I was a tween-teen my mom and I would thoroughly decorate our front yard and porch every year (for 5 or 6 years running) as a mini-haunted house. A lot of homemade decorations including a coffin my grandfather built for us. Then Halloween night I’d be in the coffin (which was on our porch) and she’d be there tending her cauldron or whatever worked for costume that year. When kids would come to the house she’d lift the coffin lid and I’d be in there with the bucket of candy. There was spooky music / sound effects, and some gloomy lighting. It was a mildly spooky vibe.

Very little kids (3 or 4) were often too scared to come up to the house and so one of the adults would have to come get their candy for them. I remember that, the last year we ended up doing it, one of the parents came up afterward and told us that their kid had been too scared to come up the year before and they talked about seeing “what was up there” on-and-off all year. And that year there were very proud to have gotten their own candy.

It’s fun to think that my mom and I are part of that family’s holiday memories.

Probably all the times I went to Spirit Halloween growing up. I really loved all the squishy gross-out toys, like creepy crawlies and rats.

If anything, I spent spooky season cosplaying, nothing spectacular. Was never really a trick-or-treater unless it was a part of something else. My favorite cosplay was of Arezu. That day, everyone wanted me to trick-or-treat.

We’ve done Halloween in key west a couple of times. Zombie bike ride is super fun!