A.J. Maguire

Tag: Halloween

  • Halloween and Doctor Who

    I don’t do Trick-or-Treating. I did when I was a kid but I remember all to well having to let my mother go through the candy to make sure nobody had done anything particularly nasty that year. We’ve all heard the horror stories and the urban legends and all things awful that could be done to unsuspecting children on All Hallows Eve and, regardless of whether or not they are real, I just can’t seem to let my son do this.

    Which is sad, I know. I love Halloween and I love watching my son pick a costume and I make sure he has every opportunity to wear said costume throughout the month of October (and often the rest of the year.)

    But as a single parent who lives in an apartment complex full of college students I draw the line at trick-or-treating.

    Over the last six years my son and I have made our own traditions for this special night. We both dress up, we make a special dinner, and we try to construct a haunted ginger bread house. Mostly we just eat the pieces but for about 20 seconds the thing manages to stand upright.

    We watched Scooby-Doo last year but this year we’ve both decided to watch Doctor Who.

    We’ve been catching up on the new season since Monday and the episode called “Listen” scared the skittles out of us both. Totally appropriate for Halloween, wouldn’t you say?

    I mean, there was one part where some thing was sitting on this kid’s bed, hiding under a blanket. It was so terribly creepy that my son hid his face. I was little better, clutching him to my side and wondering just how far Moffat was going to take this particular story-line.

    In any case, I’m sure there are people out there who will say I’m robbing my son of a grand experience by barring him from trick-or-treating. To you I would say, let’s agree to disagree. There are plenty of other things my son and I can do to celebrate that don’t include driving down unfamiliar streets hunting for the houses with their lights on.

    We went to the corn maze twice this month. We have pumpkins to carve. We have cupcakes to bake and a haunted ginger bread house to construct. And we have Doctor Who to watch.

  • Costumes

    Last weekend I had the pleasure of riding the Thunder Mountain Railroad train to the pumpkin patch with my mother and my son.  It was great fun and my son got to pick out two pumpkins — both of which have been properly carved and set outside our door.  Then, because we had a bit of time before my mother had to go home, we went costume shopping.

    It’s been a while since I’ve done that and I was more than a little startled at some of the costumes they had out there.  In particular, costumes for women that were blatantly meant for sex appeal.  I’m not going to rant and rave about that.  Honestly, if you feel comfortable in something like that, then have fun.

    However, there are many of us who would prefer to wear something fun without freezing in the late October weather.  There was only one small section of costumes that fit this bill and one of them included a Gumbi outfit.  (There was also a cute wizard costume but it was over a hundred dollars and I’m afraid I’m too cheap to permit myself such a purchase.)  I ended up purchasing a Star Trek costume even though it was made for a man and twice my size.

    Since I am a geek, this made me happy.  Even if I did choose to forego the Spock ears and just get a phaser (which has been commandeered by my son as one of the coolest toys we own).  In retrospect, however, I would have been three times as happy with a female Star Trek costume.  I can’t imagine this costume store had run out of such a thing since its shelves were full to bursting.  Which means they just didn’t think to put it in stock.  As if every woman in the world wants to wear fishnet pantyhose and above-the-thigh skirts.

    Like I said before, if you enjoy wearing those things then that’s fine.  I just wish they had a little more variety for those of us who don’t.    And I should probably qualify that statement with the fact that this was a family costume store, not just an odd-ball store.  My son is going to be Bumblebee from Transformers and they had plenty of stuff in there for him as well.

    But I’ll have fun on Halloween anyway, dwarfed in my Star Trek outfit and using my phaser every time my son does something silly.  I’m sure I could have found something online that fit me, but half the fun of Halloween is hunting for that costume and rifling through the stuff in the store.  As much as I love doing things online, using my Kindle, and rating books on Goodreads, there are still some things that you have to do physically — if only to get out of the house now and then.

  • Scary Stories

    Given that it is now October it seems appropriate to list my favorite ghost stories.  Or, well, the stories that creep me out the most.  There are many ghosts that populate literature, even if the stories are not necessarily “ghost” related.  Horror is not my favorite genre and I tend to stay far away from it, but I do enjoy Scott Sigler.  Of course, Mr. Sigler is mostly known for his alien football series, but I have read some of his other stuff and they do tend to get under my skin.

    That said, aside from Scott Sigler I don’t really read Horror.  But I have seen some movies so you’ll notice that my list is mostly of those.

    #5 – Edgar Allan Poe – The Pit and the Pendulum as well as The Raven.  Come on, who doesn’t get creeped out when reading “Nevermore.” 

    #4 — Wait Until Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn.  This book scared the crap out of me when I was kid.  Seriously.  I still have a fear of kelp. 

    #3 — Ancestor by Scott Sigler.  Congratulations, Mr. Sigler.  You have managed to make pregnant cows something to fear. 

    #2 — It by Stephen King.  Yep.  Clowns are suddenly horrifying.  This would be one of those that I watched rather than read.  I just can’t sit in a state of fear for the days it would take to read his work.

    #1 —  Rose Red by Stephen King.  This is another one that I watched rather than read.  It was shown in a two-part session a couple of years back and I remember I couldn’t sleep that first night.  I was seriously that terrified.  

    Those are my top five scary stories.  Rose Red sits there at the top of the list because of that horrible night I spent unable to sleep.  Anyone have a better story?