Let's Talk with Lois Winston
October 31, 2024
Happy (?) Halloween
Are you one of the tens of millions of Americans who dolls up your house and yard for Halloween? Decorating for Halloween has grown every year for the last couple of decades. Americans’ spending on Halloween is second only to the dollars they drop for Christmas decorating.
Each year items start appearing earlier and earlier in stores. This year I began seeing Halloween décor before summer. And it’s not just cute witches and pumpkins. Some people need storage lockers to house all the blow-up witches and ghosts and the larger-than-life skeletons, both human and dinosaurs, that dot their lawns from shortly after Labor Day to shortly before Thanksgiving when they switch over to Christmas decor.
I’ve never been a fan of Halloween. As a child, I was very shy. Being sent out on my own to ring neighbors’ doorbells to beg for candy was a fate worse than death to me. I could barely see through the small eye-holes in those old plastic masks that came with the cheap plastic costumes, and usually returned home with skinned knees from having tripped at some point. Then there were the marauding teenage boys who ran up behind unsuspecting eight-year-olds and hurled raw eggs at us.
I was always more comfortable as a behind-the-scenes person, happy to paint scenery or sew costumes for the school play while others took to the stage. When I became a mother, I happily sewed Halloween costumes for my kids, but when it came to the actual trick or treating, I always opted to stay home to answer the door and let my husband escort them around the neighborhood.
As authors, we’re often told to write what we know. Many of us imbue our protagonists with elements of our own selves. This has been especially true in my creation of Anastasia Pollack, the reluctant amateur sleuth of my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. Not only have I given Anastasia both a career and a mother-in-law similar to my own, but I’ve also instilled in her with my feelings about Halloween, including the nightmare of my long ago experience of being the target of a raw egg bombardment.
I know I’m an outlier when it comes to Halloween, but I also can’t stand peanut butter, which some even consider un-American. But that’s a story for another day.
Meanwhile, if you’d like a promo code for a free download of the audiobook of A Stitch to Die For or any one of the other first eleven audiobooks in my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, post a comment about Halloween, peanut butter, or anything else you really, really don’t like and why (but please stay away from politics and other hot button topics.)
A Stitch to Die For
An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 5
Ever since her husband died and left her in debt equal to the gross national product of Uzbekistan, magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack has stumbled across one dead body after another—but always in work-related settings. When a killer targets the elderly nasty neighbor who lives across the street from her, murder strikes too close to home. Couple that with a series of unsettling events days before Halloween, and Anastasia begins to wonder if someone is sending her a deadly message.
Knitting and crochet projects included.
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Posted in Let's Talk, with Lois Winston • Tags: A Stitch to Die For, audiobook, Happy Halloween, Lois Winston | 27 Comments
Halloween 🦇 is a great day to get plenty of candy for everyone
Have a happy and safe Halloween 🎃
LOL, Crystal! And a real tempter for those watching their weight! But I do have to admit, if you’ve got any KitKats in your stash, I might steal them. 😉
I share your feelings on Halloween. I too did not go trick or treating except to my grandmother’s and aunts and uncles. I enjoyed giving out candy to others until I moved to a neighborhood where the kids were brought in by van and some seemed to be quite a bit older and bigger. I live in a house with a handicap ramp and I walk with a walker so it is very hard to get up and down to answer the door now. I do buy candy in case but have found that now the kids are too lazy to come up the ramp. My neighbor goes all out. Yard decorated with music and all.
Bernadette, we also lived for many years in towns where outsiders drove in by the carload. Most didn’t even bother wearing costumes and rarely said thank-you. I now live in a house with 17 steps up to the front door. We haven’t had a single treat or treater in the 3+ years we’ve lived here. I guess a piece of candy isn’t worth the climb.
Hi Lois — I understand your dislike of the holiday–my mom was just like that — but I LOVE Halloween, myself. We’re out in the boonies now and I really miss seeing all the costumed kids and handing out candy (and I always dressed up, too). And I get a kick out of those folks who buy the giant skeletons and pose them in funny ways in their front yards. Happy Halloween, anyhow!
No judgment, Diane. It’s just not my thing. About a week ago, I passed a house that had those skeletons all over the property, from small to gargantuan, both human and animals. Not only were they all over the yard, but they were climbing up the house and on the roof. There were easily at least fifty or more. They probably leased a storage locker to house them all off-season.
When I was young Halloween was my absolute favorite holiday! We lived in a quiet neighborhood (but with lots of kids) and it was such fun to dress up for Halloween. And, of course, the candy. I also love to pass out candy to the kids, but unfortunately we don’t get any at our house. I miss seeing them in all the cute costumes.
Helen, most years where I lived it was always too cold to see costumes other than what stuck out from under winter coats. This year it’s unseasonably warm, but it’s also supposed to rain later today.
I actually loved Halloween as a child. Now I enjoy it with my own kids. It is my daughter’s favorite holiday, and she starts decorating more than a month before the holiday. Unfortunately, we don’t get trick or treaters anymore, so we go out for some Halloween fun.
We lived at our previous home for 23 years. We used to have quite a few kids come, but in recent years, even before Covid, we’d get fewer and fewer each year, even though there were many kids in the neighborhood. Families were opting for Halloween parties instead.
Candy as a reward has never motivated for me, even as a child. As the eldest of a foursome with two cousins and my brother, I mostly remember Halloween for my responsibility to keep the younger ones safe as we trolled the neighborhood. This year, I came across a hilarious photo of one of those nights—I look to be about nine or ten, and the youngest about four—and posted it on my Facebook page just for grins. However, I think the date is a good outlet for for grownups to have a little harmless fun being a kid again.
Gay, like you, I was the oldest and responsible for shepherding my younger siblings. I found it a harrowing experience trying to corral them in the dark, especially when crossing streets.
I strongly dislike Halloween—not quite hate, but would rather have all those monsters that crop up in the front of the home improvement stores and are triggered by motion banished to the back of the store. We’ve got some neighbors who decorate, but I’ll wait for Christmas, thank you very much!
Totally agree, Terry!
I really enjoy seeing the kids and their costumes on Halloween and having a good time.
Dianne, I don’t think there was any trick or treating around here last night. It rained all afternoon and evening.
Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I loved it as a kid when we could run around collecting candy. I enjoyed seeing my own kids going door to door. And now I get to watch my grandson’s wild excitement. But I barely decorate for this holiday and am not fond of what it represents.
Nancy, it’s interesting how our childhood experiences influence us for decades to come. If I your memories of Halloween, I’d probably think different about it.
I love Halloween and everything about it! Maybe that’s because I was born on Halloween eve–in Salem!
Oh my! Now that’s interesting!
I used to dread Halloween because I had to make my own costume out of stuff we had on hand. And I’d already gotten in trouble before for cutting eye holes in one of my sheets… These days, I’m amazed by the range and excess people go to for Halloween decorations. But really, for me the small draw for Halloween was always the candy.
Maggie, I now try to look at it as being good for the economy 😉
We grew up celebrating Halloween with school carnivals, costumes and trick or treating. Now, I just sit with a snack and watch Halloween movies.
Sounds like a plan, Brenda. Halloween with the Sanderson Sisters!
Now it’s November and THE election is almost here! Heaven help us!
Lois, I agree with you about peanut butter. I have never liked it, and still don’t. As far as Halloween, we always went trick or treating in our costumes. This is a different time than I grew up in. Last year and this year we had no kids coming to our door trick or treating.
Years ago there were a lot more kids trick-or-treating on our street. Now we get hardly any.