Halloween Discussion Forums, Costumes, Horror!

Lol. I would if I could. It's going to be a quick trip, up on Thurs and home on Sun. I think the same teenage girl who plays the Christkind in Nurnberg (sp?) for two years comes to Chicago for a third year. I heard about it on Rick Steves' European Christmas special. I looked up the market on line, ...

Oh, that is charming. It looks like I'll be making a quick trip to Chicago in early Dec. My son, who's decided not to come home for Thanksgiving, wants me to spend an early Dec weekend with him so we can go to the big Christmas Market up there. Supposedly it's the most authentic one in the world out...

Oh, is that the quaint downtown area you mentioned? You do have a great view!

Just revisiting this thread. I like history in general, though I think my favorite period of American history may be the Revolutionary period. I'm STILL reading The Frontiersmen (long book, and I read it for a few minutes every night before bed). I have about 30 pp to go. It's so sad reading about t...

Oh, I bet they do! How lovely for you to have a clear view of it!

BTW, check the Martinmas/Old Halloween thread I started last year (it's today). It's a bigger deal in Germany than I'd realized, and it does have similarities to Halloween.

I thought I'd revive this old thread today. I was just reading about St Martin's Day customs in the Catholic parts of Germany. Children 10 and under carry lanterns and sing songs (hymns?) door to door, after which they are rewarded with treats. I wonder if our ToT customs were influenced at all by G...

Driving around after dark this evening, we spotted a few houses with Christmas lights up.

Oh, your tree is up already! My husband has never permitted me to put up the tree until after Thanksgiving. I try to get it up that Saturday, but I'm often too busy. Since Thanksgiving is late, the run up to Christmas will feel shorter.

I didn't get in on 80s ToTing, because I had kids so late, but the 80s were the best decade of my life as far as society was concerned. My ToTing years with the kids spanned 1990-2013, because they were born four years apart, and my younger two happily ToTed into their teens. We were lucky that a ne...

I watched V for Vendetta yesterday afternoon with my daughter, who'd never seen it. The movie came out in 2005, but as she watched she started giving me sidelong glances. At one point she said. "I feel as if someone saw this movie and started taking notes." There are certainly aspects of i...

Oh, I'm so glad to hear Halloween was perfect for you and yours! Weather daunted us somewhat, but I've had great.Halloweens, too, especially when my kids were ToTing, and I wouldn't take anything for the memories. Honestly, for me, the best Halloweens of my life were with them, because in my childho...

I also generally watch three musical dvds prior to Halloween, although I forgot to do that this year. So over the last few days I've viewed them. They are the staged version of Phantom of the Opera, a 25th anniversary celebration at the Royal Albert Hall in London; the film version (2014?) of Into t...

It is based (I think) on a graphic novel I'd never heard of, but it's set in a dystopian London in the near-ish future. It stars Hugo Weaving, who wears a Guy Fawkes mask throughout the film, and who uses Guy Fawkes Day as the day to start a one-man terrorist revolt against the fascistic-style gover...

Actually, I do own a DVD of Coco. It is certainly a gorgeous movie, though I'm not sure I like the assumption that people's souls last only as long as they're remembered on earth. That doesn't even strike me as commensurate with the doctrine of purgatory. If I throw theology out the window, I can en...

Well, it's a puzzlement, then. I'm sorry y'all were disappointed. Mau, Mike was/is a devout Catholic who attended parochial school as a kid. He told us that, as a child, he always got Nov 1 off from school, because All Saints Day is a holy day of obligation in that denomination. He said that the thr...