How I Spent Halloween through the Years2 min read

Halloween is celebrated by many across the globe with some traditions that stay the same while others change as the years pass by.

As a child my family and I moved around a lot because my father was in the Army. For this reason, how my sister and I celebrated Halloween varied from place to place.

When we lived on military bases and our mom didn’t work, our family would host a Halloween party for our friends and classmates who also lived on the base.

The party would include lots of food made to look scary and elaborate decorations. As we got older and our mom got a job, these parties eventually went away.

In New Jersey we would celebrate with our Girl Scout troop and go trick or treating.

When we moved to cold Upstate New York in the 1^st and 2^nd grades, we started to stay in and watch a movie after going trick or treating.

The only movie I can remember watching was the Son of the Mask. It’s not a Halloween movie per se, but it is weird.

When I reached my first year of high school my sister and I (but mostly my sister) bugged our parents into letting us have a Halloween party like we used to. They agreed and we each invited a few of friends.

By contrast to the parties we had before, this one wasn’t as fancy. We ate pizza, hot dogs, chips, and so much candy.

We tried to watch Rocky Horror Picture Show on my mom’s laptop, but some of the boys kept talking over it and we eventually turned it off.

At the time only my mom and friend, Hannah, were familiar with it and wanted to watch it. We spent the rest of the party playing Cards Against Humanity and helping my parents hand out candy.

In my freshman and sophomore years of college I went with my friends to the shadow cast performances of Rocky Horror Picture Show at my school.

I can now understand why my mom and Hannah liked it so much after watching the movie with a shadow cast.

The shows involve a lot of audience interaction and props for the audience to use. People are encouraged to yell lines and throw props, like rice, at cast members.

When we watched in high school, Hannah quoted some of audience’s lines and mimed the prop motions. When I recently talked to my mom about a showing she’d gone to with my dad and sister, she joked about them not knowing how to throw the rice or toilet paper.

I’m missing the show this year by studying abroad, but I’ll be able to go one last time in my senior year. I may even be able to go to a show here in London.

 

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