I saw my favourite stories come to life, the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding hood, Alice and the White Rabbit, I even saw some old friends. Dracula and his three brides, The Wolfman and Frankenstein and his Bride, they all seemed to forget what they should be doing.

Dracula didn’t even glance at the bare neck of a passerby; he was concentrating on his Candy collection. The big Bad wolf was Helping Little Red with her overly heavy bag of candy. The Wolfman never made a peep when all of these delicious little Goat shaped children passed by.

I just couldn’t believe it, what had happened; nothing was as it should be. No havoc, no bloodshed, everyone was smiling and happy as they walked around on a crisp Halloween night, forgetting the roles they play and just having fun.  As I watched them, something happened within my cold dead heart; I had no desire for havoc or bloodshed anymore. All I kept thinking about was talking with my friends, having a good time and boasting about all the candy we’ve gotten as we run around without a care in the world. Without knowing it, I found myself walking out my front door, bag in hand, ready to accept candy from strangers, wanting only the candy and nothing more from them.

I guess Halloween brings out the child in everyone, even someone as old as me. I can’t wait for next year.

With all the wars waging even today, this is the only time of the year where Angels and Demons, Cops and Criminals and every type of person who should normally fight against each other can come together and fight for one greater purpose: who will get the most candy and of course to egg the occasional house that decides to hand out a Healthy Alternative; like a Banana.

So keep this in mind, it will save you hours of scrapping dried egg and silly string off of your windows; the next time you’re about to grab a sack of apples instead of that delicious 50 pack of mini chocolate bars, remember that this is the one night of the year that you can help a Lion and a Goat come together to fight for the same thing: good candy, good fun and lots of memories that do not end in bloodshed, unless you decide to come to my Halloween party, but I promise it won’t hurt….much.

I mock, but only because these myths of Halloween are so eminently mockable. As it happens, Halloween has generated a host of safety myths, turning a once wholesome celebration of zombies, vampires, and other dead, undead, and half-dead things into something rather more sinister. Let’s examine some of these myths:

• The candy is poisoned: Every year, we are bombarded with warnings to search our children’s candy carefully for puncture holes, opened wrappers, and so on. Homemade treats; popcorn balls, candy apples, and the like have completely disappeared from the Halloween repertoire for fear of poisoning. And yet there has never been an instance of a child being poisoned by Halloween candy given her or him by a stranger. Never. The only incident in which Halloween candy has been used to poison someone was a little boy in 1974 who ate Pixie Stix laced with cyanide (rat poison, essentially) by his father, ostensibly to collect on the child’s life insurance policy.
• There’s needles/razors in the candy: Unlike the fear of poisoning, this one has actually happened, though nobody’s ever been badly hurt. Almost all reported cases of needles or razor bladed being concealed in Halloween candy or other treats have been hoaxes, and the 10 or so that have been confirmed resulted in no injury. All but one of those have been pranks carried out by older siblings or friends. The one exception occurred in 2000 when a man stuck needles into Snickers bars and handed them out; nobody was injured. As it happens, needles and razor blades are easily discovered and not all that dangerous (and you can’t get HIV from them except under conditions that Halloween trick-or-treating simply can’t produce).
• There’s child molesters roaming free in my neighborhood! You might have looked at one of the scare-sites (appropriate for Halloween, I suppose) that show you how many registered sex offenders live within spitting distance of your house, maybe even mapped their addresses. What you might not have known is how someone gets to be on the sex offenders registry. Many are folks who slept with their 15-year old girlfriends or boyfriends when they were 16 or even when they were 14 (some states prosecute underage sex regardless of the age of the participants). Most, though, are in fact guilty of molesting children almost always their own (or closely related). There are very, very few cases (less than 5%) of children being accosted by strangers the number of cases over the last decade is in the hundreds, out of many thousands of child abuse cases.
• The dead walk the earth: This one’s true. Give them candy. And pray…

The reality is that your children are fairly safe from victimization by your neighbors. Statistically speaking, you and your family are the greatest threat your children. While it makes good sense to teach your children to be aware of themselves and their surroundings in the company of strangers, the feverish panic that breaks out every year in the weeks before Halloween is way out of proportion to the actual threat posed to your children.

So where does the panic come from? At least part of it has to be pinned on local news organizations and their addiction to the scare story as a way to drive ratings. “Poisoned candy rampant in the Southland! Are your children at risk??????” I can only assume that people respond to this kind of thing, since news broadcasters keep doing it, risking their credibility and seriousness in the process.

But the more important story lies in the anxieties we as a society have fostered over the last several decades. As we’ve become more and more isolated with the rise of suburban living, greater job demands, the availability of in-home and solitary entertainments, and so on, we’ve grown distrustful and suspicious of our neighbors because more than at any other time in human history we don’t know who they are. We don’t rely on them and they don’t rely on us, we don’t have any obligations to them and they don’t have any obligations to us. We are literally surrounded by strangers.

And along comes Halloween, and what do we do? We allow our children to go door to door among those strangers and beg for candy. In anthropological terms, feeding someone and eating together are powerful markers of intimacy and demonstrations of solidarity but we aren’t intimate with our neighbors and there is no sense of solidarity. So we worry. And one way we express those worries is by telling each other urban legends about the dangers of strangers with candy, especially on Halloween. This may also be a defensive strategy, allowing us to ignore the fact that the most real source of danger to our children is their own family.

So don’t panic. Take reasonable safety precautions; make sure your kids are visible in the dark, have them carry flashlights, teach them traffic safety principles, supervise young trick-or-treaters, and don’t let Halloween pranks get out of hand. Don’t let these perfectly normal anxieties develop into irrational fears that end up polluting Halloween for yourself and your children.

Do be sure, however, to teach your kids about the dangers of the walking dead. Because that fear is totally rational.

Before anyone cries foul over my statement that TRICK ‘R TREAT is the single best Halloween-themed movie ever made, allow me to back up the statement. While 1978′s Halloween is a masterful, amazing thriller that truly has no equal in the horror genre, TRICK ‘R TREAT is something wonderfully different. It’s a movie that is Halloween.

Whereas Carpenter’s classic is set during the holiday and it plays heavily into the plot, the film could arguably be set on any other night and be just as frightening. TRICK ‘R TREAT hinges completely on All Hallow’s Eve, taking every spooky childhood memory its viewers have about the holiday and mashing them into a gleeful, creepy anthology of tales that are somehow both genuinely chilling and nostalgically beautiful.

Writer and director Michael Dougherty has crafted a film that transformed me into a five-year-old child in a Dracula cape and plastic fangs, riveted in stunned horror as his vision played out before me. Somehow, it succeeds in being both terrifying and charming.

TRICK ‘R TREAT‘s story unfolds unlike a traditional anthology picture, with all of the movie’s separate plots taking place together. We’re not subjected to title cards or stunted intermissions between tales, but a seamless mix of Halloween hijinx and horrors. In its five overlapping stories, a couple discovers what happens when they blow out a jack o’ lantern before midnight, a bullying child learns to check his candy before eating it, a young woman is stalked by a hooded stranger at a harvest festival, a group of pranksters uncover the ghoulish truth about a local urban legend, and an elderly Scrooge is visited by a pint-sized hellion who is far more interested in tricks than treats.

TRICK ‘R TREAT definitely deserves to be part of your Halloween movie night!

Countdown to buy your Halloween Costumes

Are you going to buy an outfit off the store rack or will you be making your
own? There are a myriad of options available whichever way you decide to go.
If time is a factor then you may decide that the best Halloween costumes for
you are in the store; but keep in mind, you can still add your own personal
touches along the way to help yourself stand out.

A List of Halloween Costume Ideas
flash costumes
devils rejects costumes
devo costumes
disney costumes

Modification is one certain way of taking an average outfit for the holiday
and turning it into one of the best Halloween costumes anybody has seen. Keep
a stash of craft glue on hand just in case you have to make any adjustments
and you’ll be fine.

How the outfit appears when worn is another consideration you’ll need to make.
Whether you go out trick or treating doesn’t matter, anyplace you show up with
a problematic costume can cause more drama than it’s worth. For this reason,
it may be a wise choice to stay clear of huge costumes that may end up being
annoying to you and those you’re around. The best Halloween costumes are the
ones that are appropriate for the occasion, remember that!

cat in the hat costumes
edward scissorhands costumes
Elvira costumes
elvis costumes
family guy costumes
fantastic 4 costumes

How long or wide the costume is will probably vary depending on the outfits
chosen. As long as you keep in mind where the costume will be worn you shouldn’t
run into problems. The best Halloween costumes for a night of trick or treating
may not be the best ones for a night spent at a dancing party. It may be hard
to mingle around a crowd of people wearing a costume the size of a giant. One
rule of thumb: if there are more than 10 people in the room, you should probably
be wearing a more streamlined costume.

friday the 13th costumes
GI Joe costumes
ghost rider costumes
ghostbusters halloween costumes
gilligan costumes
Grease costumes

Memorable doesn’t always mean large when it comes to the best Halloween costumes.
Pulling off a Halloween look that is appealing usually doesn’t involve it also
looking as if it is a chore to wear. Getting a mens costume (or womens costume)
that requires a forklift to move around may not be a sound decision. No one
wants to be around you when parts of your costume are always in their way.

Michael Meyers costumes
Halo costumes
Hannah Montana costumes
harry potter costumes

The best Halloween costumes will always bring about attention. The typical
reaction can go from laughter to a look of shock; but it seems the best Halloween
costumes may produce a little bit of both reactions. You’ll have fun finding
out what response your chosen outfits will solicit. So step out on a limb this
year and see if you can come up with a candidate for this year’s best Halloween
costumes.

You’ll be surprised at how much joy you can bring to your friends and family
by wearing a well thought out and memorable costume. The best Halloween costumes
are clever and have an element of specialness which begs the eye to look at
them. Why not see if you too can come up with something so unique that it will
make all people stare and marvel at your creation?

Elise and Louis are getting ready to go out trick or treating for candies and other goodies. Elise is dressed as a witch and Louis as Batman. Their mother has made their costumes. She has remembered to use fire-resistant fabric, which is recommended since it is not easily flammable. And despite the fact that the real Batman and a real witch have a cape, Elise and Louis are not wearing one. Pieces of fabric that trail low to the ground ignite easily if they come into contact with decorations that use candles.

Good, they’re ready! Their dad is going with them to make the rounds. They each have a flashlight and their dad will be following closely behind. Before they leave, Mom has a few last minute reminders: watch for cars and look carefully where you’re walking. If your costume catches fire, do what you learned in school: stop, drop to the ground, use your hands to cover your face and roll on the ground to smother the flames. How about a little practice before you leave? Good, the children clearly understand!

While the children and their father are gone, Mother admires the decorations of the neighboring homes and waits for visits from the ghosts and goblins who will surely be stopping by for treats. The neighbor across the street has set up a jack-o-lantern near the front door. He has used a candle to light it from the inside. The flickering flame creates an eerie glow, but danger lurks in the presence of fire! The jack-o-lantern should be placed away from flammable material. Fortunately, the jack-o-lantern is not placed near the bales of straw that decorate the front yard. Mother has decided to use small lights for her decoration and has checked the current capacity of the electrical outlets and extension cords. She has chosen to avoid using candles. What’s more, some children have loose fitting costumes that could catch fire instantly. And although the cat of the house may not be black, it can still bring bad luck if it topples over jack-o-lanterns… so could the wind for that matter!

The neighborhood has truly gone all out this year and everyone has used their imagination: gravestones, witches in trees, ghosts in windows, skeletons, spiders and other traditional ghoulish inspirations. Dried flowers, corn stalks and crepe decorations can be very ornate, but also extremely flammable. If you use them, make sure that they are not placed near flames or heat sources such as light bulbs and indoors, keep them away from electric baseboard heaters.

The front yard of the house at the end of the street is teeming with decorations. Bales of straw and a scarecrow take up most of space on the front doorstep. The owner must be unaware that exits should remain free of decorations or objects that could cause obstruction if the occupants have to flee from their home in a fire. This should be pointed out to him. If a fire starts in all that, he will have good reason to be frightened!

The end of October is also a time when we set our clocks back an hour. This gives us a little bit more time to sleep in the morning. While we are taking the time to change our clocks, we should also check our smoke alarms and battery.

Oh! The goblins are here with their bags. They’re so adorable. You can’t tell them that of course… they’re supposed to be scary!

Happy Halloween!

***NOTE***Be sure to play this Halloween Safety Game with your children to make sure they are being the safest they can be on Halloween.