Due to Hurricane Sandy, the town of Norwell rescheduled its celebration of Halloween to Saturday. Too bad I suck at Halloween.
Truth be told, it was actually pretty nice to celebrate Halloween on the weekend. After all, the rescheduled date allowed for Karen's cousin (Karlene) and Karlene's husband (Tommy) to venture down from the always likable city known as Lowell to see their godchild, my eight month old daughter (Bridget).
In addition, my friends (Cass and Ellen) came down to celebrate Halloween. Cass and Ellen's daughter was sick on the actual date of Halloween in her city. Consequently, we had invited them down to partake in the trick-or-treating that she had missed.
Needless to say, it was a fun Halloween. This year was the first year that my two year old daughter (Briana) actually went around the neighborhood to trick-or-treat. The previous times, we had just taken her to our next door neighbors. But this year was the year... and she did great.
Dressed as a frog, she actually went door to door around the neighborhood. Granted, she only made it down one block before she got tired and wanted to go home, but it was a start. I know she definitely enjoyed getting candy to fill her little pumpkin.
Following the trick-or-treating fun, all of us headed back to our place where we just hung out for a little while. Briana did something she had never done before: show Cass and Ellen's daughter her room.
All in all, it was a good Halloween.
Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
I Suck At Halloween Parties
On Saturday night, my friends (Marc and Kelley) invited Karen and I to their Halloween party. Too bad I suck at Halloween parties.
It's not that I dislike Halloween. I've just never really been into celebrating Halloween or getting dressed up. The last time that I can remember actually celebrating Halloween is when I was in fifth grade. For me, it was memorable because I got to have a shaving cream fight with one of my classmates while trick-or-treating. Good times. Good times.
Being a parent now, however, I feel obligated to enjoy Halloween a lot more by dressing up in costume. So like I told Karen, come midnight on Halloween I'm going to start planning ahead for a costume for the next Halloween. Hopefully, I can remember that.
Regardless, Marc and Kelley's Halloween party was fun. Joining in on the fun were my friends (Cass, Ellen, Garv, Leeann, Andrea, Steve and Samantha) and my BFF (Kerry). There were definitely some great costumes. Marc and Kelley actually awarded prizes for the top three costumes. For anyone curious, third place went to Steve for his Captain Hammer costume, second place went to Cass for his Psy "Gangnam Style" costume, and the grand prize went to Marc for his Magnum P.I. costume.
As usual, it was good to hang out with everyone and have some good laughs. Among some of the more memorable topics of discussion were Rachel, Friday Night Lights, Thanksgiving, and Taylor Swift
The whole Rachel thing wasn't really much of a discussion. Marc's sister (De) thought Andrea looked like a Rachel. She previously thought Steve looked like he should be named something else as well. Regardless, I have been contemplating calling Andrea Rachel now.
As for Friday Night Lights, that topic came about because I jokingly said that my backup costume idea was Jason Street from Friday Night Light. Little did I know, that would lead to other people volunteering to be other characters from the show. Surprisingly, no one offered to be Tyra Collette. (Blonde... shiny... yay!)
And along the whole dress up theme, the discussion of Thanksgiving this year came up. I thought it would be fun to have everyone dress up as either a Pilgrim or a Native American. I thought it would be cute to see my daughters dressed up for yet another holiday. We'll see how that goes. Andrea/Rachel has already offered to dress up as influenza.
Lastly, the topic of Taylor Swift came up. How could Taylor Swift not come up when her number one fan over the age of 40, also known as Garv, was present?
All in all, it was fun party. It was good to see everyone and have a few laughs.
It's not that I dislike Halloween. I've just never really been into celebrating Halloween or getting dressed up. The last time that I can remember actually celebrating Halloween is when I was in fifth grade. For me, it was memorable because I got to have a shaving cream fight with one of my classmates while trick-or-treating. Good times. Good times.
Being a parent now, however, I feel obligated to enjoy Halloween a lot more by dressing up in costume. So like I told Karen, come midnight on Halloween I'm going to start planning ahead for a costume for the next Halloween. Hopefully, I can remember that.
Regardless, Marc and Kelley's Halloween party was fun. Joining in on the fun were my friends (Cass, Ellen, Garv, Leeann, Andrea, Steve and Samantha) and my BFF (Kerry). There were definitely some great costumes. Marc and Kelley actually awarded prizes for the top three costumes. For anyone curious, third place went to Steve for his Captain Hammer costume, second place went to Cass for his Psy "Gangnam Style" costume, and the grand prize went to Marc for his Magnum P.I. costume.
As usual, it was good to hang out with everyone and have some good laughs. Among some of the more memorable topics of discussion were Rachel, Friday Night Lights, Thanksgiving, and Taylor Swift
The whole Rachel thing wasn't really much of a discussion. Marc's sister (De) thought Andrea looked like a Rachel. She previously thought Steve looked like he should be named something else as well. Regardless, I have been contemplating calling Andrea Rachel now.
As for Friday Night Lights, that topic came about because I jokingly said that my backup costume idea was Jason Street from Friday Night Light. Little did I know, that would lead to other people volunteering to be other characters from the show. Surprisingly, no one offered to be Tyra Collette. (Blonde... shiny... yay!)
And along the whole dress up theme, the discussion of Thanksgiving this year came up. I thought it would be fun to have everyone dress up as either a Pilgrim or a Native American. I thought it would be cute to see my daughters dressed up for yet another holiday. We'll see how that goes. Andrea/Rachel has already offered to dress up as influenza.
Lastly, the topic of Taylor Swift came up. How could Taylor Swift not come up when her number one fan over the age of 40, also known as Garv, was present?
All in all, it was fun party. It was good to see everyone and have a few laughs.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
I Suck At Halloween
Sunday was Halloween. Too bad I suck at Halloween.
One of my fondest memories of Halloween growing up is going trick-or-treating around the neighborhood when I was in fifth grade. The most memorable part was having a shaving cream fight with one of my fellow trick-or-treaters. It was fun... and the candy loot was equally impressive. That was back when things were simpler and hordes of children actually went out trick-or-treating.
Yet despite all the fun, I have never been into Halloween. Having a new baby daughter (Briana), I almost feel compelled to get into the Halloween spirit now. I suppose it's a natural thing. As a parent, I want to provide her with all of these experiences. And even though I am not a big fan of Halloween, I don't want to pass on my blase attitude about the day onto her. I'll let her form her own opinion. As a result, I was thinking that I would try to get into the Halloween spirit going forth. So we'll see how that goes.
As it was, a good portion of Briana's first Halloween was spent traveling. Dressed as Winnie the Pooh's Hunny Pot, Briana made the rounds to my parents and my in-laws, as well as my favorite sister-in-law's (Janine). She even went across the street to visit our neighbors (Helen and George).
All in all, it was a pretty busy day. Briana was definitely fussing by the fourth time she had to get back into the costume. Because we could not transport her in her costume (due to the safety reasons), we had to constantly take her out of the car seat, put on the costume, remove the costume, put her back into the car seat, etc. She wasn't happy, but I think her grandparents and her auntie were. The things we do to kids...
One of my fondest memories of Halloween growing up is going trick-or-treating around the neighborhood when I was in fifth grade. The most memorable part was having a shaving cream fight with one of my fellow trick-or-treaters. It was fun... and the candy loot was equally impressive. That was back when things were simpler and hordes of children actually went out trick-or-treating.
Yet despite all the fun, I have never been into Halloween. Having a new baby daughter (Briana), I almost feel compelled to get into the Halloween spirit now. I suppose it's a natural thing. As a parent, I want to provide her with all of these experiences. And even though I am not a big fan of Halloween, I don't want to pass on my blase attitude about the day onto her. I'll let her form her own opinion. As a result, I was thinking that I would try to get into the Halloween spirit going forth. So we'll see how that goes.
As it was, a good portion of Briana's first Halloween was spent traveling. Dressed as Winnie the Pooh's Hunny Pot, Briana made the rounds to my parents and my in-laws, as well as my favorite sister-in-law's (Janine). She even went across the street to visit our neighbors (Helen and George).
All in all, it was a pretty busy day. Briana was definitely fussing by the fourth time she had to get back into the costume. Because we could not transport her in her costume (due to the safety reasons), we had to constantly take her out of the car seat, put on the costume, remove the costume, put her back into the car seat, etc. She wasn't happy, but I think her grandparents and her auntie were. The things we do to kids...
Monday, November 2, 2009
I Suck At Halloween
Saturday was All Hallow's Eve... or more commonly known as... Halloween. For anyone curious, the origin of Halloween is linked the Celtic festival known as Samhain.
According to my friend Wikipedia:
Samhain "is a festival held on October 31–November 1 in Gaelic cultures. A harvest festival with ancient roots in Celtic paganism, it was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and continued to be celebrated in late medieval times.
Samhain marked the end of the harvest, the end of the 'lighter half' of the year and beginning of the 'darker half'. Many scholars believe that it was the beginning of the Celtic year. It has some elements of a festival of the dead. The Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became thin on Samhain. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. People and their livestock would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames.
The Gaelic custom of wearing costumes and masks, was an attempt to copy the spirits or placate them. In Scotland the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white. Samhnag — turnips which were hollowed-out and carved with faces to make lanterns — were also used to ward off harmful spirits.
The Gaelic festival became associated with the Christian All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, and has hugely influenced the secular customs now connected with Halloween."
Anyway, this year Karen and I decided to have some friends over for Halloween. With Karen in the early stages of pregnancy, we figured that it would be best to have everyone over as opposed to going out for Halloween. Plus, it allowed us to still pass out candy to all the children in our neighborhood.
Needless to say, it was great having our friends over. Our friends (Marc, Kelley, Andrea, and Cass) were able to make it, as well as my BFF (Kerry). I have not seen Andrea or Cass in quite some time, so it was great to see them again.
Amid the local trick-or-treating, we basically hung out and ordered dinner from Extreme Pita located in Norwell. (It's extreme!) It's always fun to hang out. I had a little shaker mishap that got ginger ale everywhere. Luckily, I was not near anyone when the incident occurred.
Following dinner, we decided to watch a scary movie. After all, it was Halloween. We ended up watching Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride".
(The video below is a trailer for "The Corpse Bride".)
The movie was actually pretty good. And surprisingly, none of us that were present had ever seen the movie before. So the movie experience was new to everyone, which I thought was great. And luckily for Karen, the movie itself was not scary at all. For anyone curious, Karen does not handle scary movies well. It's most unfortunate because I grew up on horror movies... and well... television in general. So, I have become quite inured to all the blood and gore.
Anyway, as "The Corpse Bride" was relatively short, we decided to keep up with the "dead" theme. Completing the double feature was the classic movie, "Better Off Dead". Interestingly enough, Andrea was the only one among us who had never seen that movie before. That was surprising since Andrea is a fan of the 80s like myself.
(The video below is a trailer for "Better Off Dead".)
Needless to say, the movie was good for a few laughs. "Two dollars!"
All in all, even though we did not do much, I had a great time hanging out with everyone.
According to my friend Wikipedia:
Samhain "is a festival held on October 31–November 1 in Gaelic cultures. A harvest festival with ancient roots in Celtic paganism, it was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and continued to be celebrated in late medieval times.
Samhain marked the end of the harvest, the end of the 'lighter half' of the year and beginning of the 'darker half'. Many scholars believe that it was the beginning of the Celtic year. It has some elements of a festival of the dead. The Gaels believed that the border between this world and the otherworld became thin on Samhain. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. People and their livestock would often walk between two bonfires as a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames.
The Gaelic custom of wearing costumes and masks, was an attempt to copy the spirits or placate them. In Scotland the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white. Samhnag — turnips which were hollowed-out and carved with faces to make lanterns — were also used to ward off harmful spirits.
The Gaelic festival became associated with the Christian All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, and has hugely influenced the secular customs now connected with Halloween."
Anyway, this year Karen and I decided to have some friends over for Halloween. With Karen in the early stages of pregnancy, we figured that it would be best to have everyone over as opposed to going out for Halloween. Plus, it allowed us to still pass out candy to all the children in our neighborhood.
Needless to say, it was great having our friends over. Our friends (Marc, Kelley, Andrea, and Cass) were able to make it, as well as my BFF (Kerry). I have not seen Andrea or Cass in quite some time, so it was great to see them again.
Amid the local trick-or-treating, we basically hung out and ordered dinner from Extreme Pita located in Norwell. (It's extreme!) It's always fun to hang out. I had a little shaker mishap that got ginger ale everywhere. Luckily, I was not near anyone when the incident occurred.
Following dinner, we decided to watch a scary movie. After all, it was Halloween. We ended up watching Tim Burton's "The Corpse Bride".
(The video below is a trailer for "The Corpse Bride".)
The movie was actually pretty good. And surprisingly, none of us that were present had ever seen the movie before. So the movie experience was new to everyone, which I thought was great. And luckily for Karen, the movie itself was not scary at all. For anyone curious, Karen does not handle scary movies well. It's most unfortunate because I grew up on horror movies... and well... television in general. So, I have become quite inured to all the blood and gore.
Anyway, as "The Corpse Bride" was relatively short, we decided to keep up with the "dead" theme. Completing the double feature was the classic movie, "Better Off Dead". Interestingly enough, Andrea was the only one among us who had never seen that movie before. That was surprising since Andrea is a fan of the 80s like myself.
(The video below is a trailer for "Better Off Dead".)
Needless to say, the movie was good for a few laughs. "Two dollars!"
All in all, even though we did not do much, I had a great time hanging out with everyone.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
I Suck At Halloween
tonight, karen and i celebrated halloween at my friend's (garv) restaurant... blue 22. too bad i suck at halloween.
it's been a surprising halloween thus far. i was expecting a lot of children to go trick-or-treating this year because halloween was on a friday. plus, the temperature was nice and warm. i figured all of that would produce a lot of trick-or-treaters this year. sadly, i was mistaken.
we ended the night with very few trick-or-treaters. after the children in our neighborhood finished their trick-or-treating, karen and i went to garv's restaurant, blue 22, to celebrate the night. karen went as a mushroom. it was a very neat costume. karen took a sombrero and added fabric and padding to it to create a mushroom cap. the cap did not look that big until she placed it on her head. apparently, she had gotten the idea from my friend (jen) who saw the costume on television.
as for me, i did not have a costume. i really am not into gettting dressed up. stretching for ideas, i decided to go as a computer virus. i went to my friend's (marc) place and printed out the source code for the melissa virus. i thought it was fitting because my ex-girlfriend was named melissa. i like to refer to her as the "scourge of evil" at times. i mean it in the best possible way of course.
anyway, karen and i picked up marc (who dressed up as the dude from the movie "the big lebowski") and headed to blue 22. it was totally fun. blue 22 offered free food consisting of pasta salad, chicken fingers, chicken wings, and french fries.
my friends (jen, hot amy, kerry and bill) met us at the restaurant. also at the restaurant was garv and his wife (leeann) and my friend's (cass) brother (bj). it was a fun time. bill actually won a prize for his costume. he went as captain hook.
(pictured below is bill as captain hook.)
i think next year, i'll try to get into the halloween spirit and get all dressed up. like i keep telling myself, i just need time to plan a costume. now that i have a year, that should be plenty of time... or at least that is what i tell myself.
growing up, i always thought it would be cool to get dressed up as a knight for halloween... complete with plates of armor and chainmail. i imagine it would be tough to use the bathroom wearing all of that attire, but i thought it would be cool nonetheless.
for anyone curious, that is how i decided to use the handle "cavalier". not only does the definition of the word mean knight, the word "cavalier" also means "marked by or given to offhand and often disdainful dismissal of important matters" according to the merriam webster online dictionary, which i would say describes my instigating attitude fairly well. apparently, the definition also means debonair too. so all in all, i thought "cavalier" would be a good name to use for me.
anyway, as much as i liked the idea of dressing up in a suit of armor, i probably will never do it. i'm afraid that once i don the armor, that the whole costume thing becomes borderline LARPing... not that there is anything wrong with that of course. i just don't want to perpetuate my geekiness any further. that's all.
it's been a surprising halloween thus far. i was expecting a lot of children to go trick-or-treating this year because halloween was on a friday. plus, the temperature was nice and warm. i figured all of that would produce a lot of trick-or-treaters this year. sadly, i was mistaken.
we ended the night with very few trick-or-treaters. after the children in our neighborhood finished their trick-or-treating, karen and i went to garv's restaurant, blue 22, to celebrate the night. karen went as a mushroom. it was a very neat costume. karen took a sombrero and added fabric and padding to it to create a mushroom cap. the cap did not look that big until she placed it on her head. apparently, she had gotten the idea from my friend (jen) who saw the costume on television.
as for me, i did not have a costume. i really am not into gettting dressed up. stretching for ideas, i decided to go as a computer virus. i went to my friend's (marc) place and printed out the source code for the melissa virus. i thought it was fitting because my ex-girlfriend was named melissa. i like to refer to her as the "scourge of evil" at times. i mean it in the best possible way of course.
anyway, karen and i picked up marc (who dressed up as the dude from the movie "the big lebowski") and headed to blue 22. it was totally fun. blue 22 offered free food consisting of pasta salad, chicken fingers, chicken wings, and french fries.
my friends (jen, hot amy, kerry and bill) met us at the restaurant. also at the restaurant was garv and his wife (leeann) and my friend's (cass) brother (bj). it was a fun time. bill actually won a prize for his costume. he went as captain hook.
(pictured below is bill as captain hook.)
i think next year, i'll try to get into the halloween spirit and get all dressed up. like i keep telling myself, i just need time to plan a costume. now that i have a year, that should be plenty of time... or at least that is what i tell myself.
growing up, i always thought it would be cool to get dressed up as a knight for halloween... complete with plates of armor and chainmail. i imagine it would be tough to use the bathroom wearing all of that attire, but i thought it would be cool nonetheless.
for anyone curious, that is how i decided to use the handle "cavalier". not only does the definition of the word mean knight, the word "cavalier" also means "marked by or given to offhand and often disdainful dismissal of important matters" according to the merriam webster online dictionary, which i would say describes my instigating attitude fairly well. apparently, the definition also means debonair too. so all in all, i thought "cavalier" would be a good name to use for me.
anyway, as much as i liked the idea of dressing up in a suit of armor, i probably will never do it. i'm afraid that once i don the armor, that the whole costume thing becomes borderline LARPing... not that there is anything wrong with that of course. i just don't want to perpetuate my geekiness any further. that's all.
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