Halloween Contest Winner & Story Entries

My Halloween contest for a copy of A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness and swag has ended and we have a winner!!

Joyce F!

Yay congrats! I've already sent you an email and you have 4 days to reply before a new winner will be chosen. Thanks for entering everyone and hope you all had a great Halloween! :)

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Now, on the entry form there was a spot for extra entries by sharing: family Halloween traditions, your best or worst costume, scariest thing that ever happened to you, most memorable Halloween party, etc. Like I said on the form, I've compiled all of these short little stories everyone has shared. Most of them are really interesting or funny!

For a couple of years now we had the tradition of watching Ghost Hunters live with the best all out homemade sub sandwiches. Trick or treating has actually took a backburner to this tradition. -Melissa

I've had a handmade costume ever since I was a little kid. My mom always made them, and when I got old enough I took over the torch and started making my own :). I love how it saves money, I love that it makes you have an original costume, and I LOVE being complimented! I can't wait to pass the torch on to my kids when I have them! -Jessica

My favorite Halloween tradition that my family does is letting each member be responsible for another person's costume. It's kind of like secret santa, only for halloween. It's really fun but you can't be too sadistic with your costume choice because there's Costume Karma. Last year I made my brother wear tights. I'm terrified to find out what costume he's cooked up in revenge...I drew my mom's name this year and I'm having a blast planning her costume. It's definitely a tradition I want to pass on to future generations. -Tina

Every year I watch Pumpkinhead with my daughter. The past two years I've gone over to her house in PA. She gets hoards of trick or treaters. -Indigo

We used to always order pizza before we went trick or treating. Now that we're too old for that, we go to my aunt's party and eat all the finger foods and candy we can. Halloween is all about the food. -Leslie

We live in a real haunted house so I do not have to go out to be scared for Halloween. We throw the best and scariest Halloween parties. Our ghosts have never let us down, they always do something to make themselves known. We always have people wanting to come to our house just to see if the place is really haunted. -April

I went as a One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People in high school. -Kathy

My most memorable Halloween was as a kid I dressed as a gypsy in a dress my great aunt let me borrow and my brother was a ninja turtle and my sister was a vampire. My mom has a picture of that Halloween framed that she always keeps out. -Cathie

Halloween has always been the day before my birthday, so it's always been my favorite holiday! Who doesn't want to dress up and run around the neighborhood and get candy? Then the next day, I can eat it all day long on my birthday! I went trick or treating every year until I was 13, then I went again when I was 16 just for the fun of it. :) I love Halloween! -Ava

My best costume - Sally from A Nightmare Before Christmas! I forked over the money to get the real Disney costume, complete with dress/wig/leggings. I paint my face to be pale blue with stitches, and then I'm all ready to go! I've worn this costume several years in a row, and sometimes I change it up to be an evil rag doll or a cute rag doll. -Amy

When I was two my parents decided that since I had a fear of clowns that if I were to go trick or treating dressed as one it would cure my fear. Well it didn't work. They had to keep me away from all reflective surfaces because whenever I saw my reflection I would start crying. Way to go parents :) -Jenni

My son, his wife and my grandson put on costumes and, as a family, we go Trick or Treating. We take the car and my son and I wait in it as my daughter-in-law takes my grandson to the doors. We all have a very good time. -Patsy

One of our favorite mini-Halloween traditions is to sneak over in the middle of the night, and tee-pee my grown daughter & her husband's house! They have the perfect *huge* tree on their front lawn that just begs for the *mummy* treatment ;D -Mary

Well every Halloween when I was little I used to go trick or treating with my older brother because at the time it was only us two. Of course our mom used to take us. I remember for one Halloween I dressed up as Batgirl! And the one other thing I perfectly remember was when me and my brothers were younger our grandmother used to scare us by telling us that there were ghosts at our window. Back then we didn't know that it was actually just the wind and the tree branches and leaves. She would scare us to get us to behave. -Monica

I just had a Halloween party last night, my friends sang karaoke, went on a hay ride, ate gobs of candy, did 2 scavenger hunts and just had a great time! -Rachelle

My birthday is Halloween so I always had a party.....sometimes everyone dressed funny other times scary was the dress code.....one time everyone had to come as an animal. That one was a gas.....I was a cat. We had a pig, cow, dog and even a chicken! -Aurora

My most memorable Halloween party was the year I went to Salem Mass. with a bunch of girlfriends. We went to a party at one of the hotels there and there was a back room where people were actually drinking blood. -Joyce (the winner!)

I live on a really busy street so we have never had trick or treating in my neighborhood, so when I was younger, we always used to go over to my cousin's house to trick or treat together. The street was so into Halloween and they even had a "Jason" running around with a chainsaw. I have some great memories of Halloween with my cousins. Now, I watch movies and make lots of food with my two best friends on Halloween. -Steph

Best costume was my friends... she went as Darth Vader. Her dad made an authentic looking helmet and got tons of attention for it. :) -Melissa

When the kids were small, every Halloween I would hang a skeleton or a witch for each boy in one of the sheds. At sunset, they had to go out with a flashlight to find one of the decorations. Taped to the had of each figure was a car trunk key. Find the figure, take the key, open the trunk, and there was a bag of candy. As the kids became older and braver, the hiding was more complex. After the candy, there were monster movies, hot pizza, cold drinks and popcorn. -Victoria

I remember one Halloween when I told my mother I was too old to go trick or treating but at the last minute changed my mind. The only costume we came up with was a trash bag. We cut two holes for the legs and two for my arms and tied it around my neck and stuffed it with newspaper. It was pretty cool. -Debbie

I would always get dressed up and go to a party with my parents at one of their friends' house and all us kids would go trick-or-treating. But I haven't had as much fun on Halloween as now that I'm an adult and can have my own awesome costume parties. -Julie

My grandchildren and daughters all take a day to go to a local Harvest where we play games, paint pumpkins and build a scarecrow. The children all choose a pumpkin to take home for carving. We set aside an afternoon and everyone carves their pumpkin and we roast the pumpkin seeds. -Nedra

My mom is a seemstress so I have never worn a store bought costume, she always hand makes whatever I want. Now that I'm at university and dressing up is "cool again" she helped me make a really cute little apron and dress so that I could go as a Tim Burton-esque doll. Although, my all time favorite costume was the one she made in in second grade when I was Meg from the Disney movie Hercules. -Kathleen

Every year my Grandparents threw a large halloween party for the family. Everyone, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. would dress up in their scariest costumes for a fun evening. My Grandfather would call square dances and food would be pot luck with the aunts all competing to make the scariest, yet delicious, looking food. My Grandparents and some of the aunts and uncles are gone now but the wonderful memories will last forever. -Sherrie

We use to have a haunted house that we created at church each year. We looked forward to the bonfire and the hay ride that went along with it each year! -Selinda

One tradition that I have every year is to watch Nightmare Before Christmas on Halloween night. I love to have the movie playing when trick-or-treaters ring my bell. It's the best Halloween movie ever. -Stacy

We go trick or treating in a quaint halloweeny town 20 miles from home. A few days later the Great Pumpkin drops candy and toys in our pumpkin patch for the kids. -Linda

Every year my youngest child and I go around decorating our house. For some reason this youngest child of mine who is afraid of many things enjoys Halloween and decorating for it! -Shauna

This year I was Super Mario, and I am an adult, but the best costume was when I was nine and we were so broke, my mom stitched my costume from some old sheer curtains. I was the coolest genie around! Also the coldest, but hey. -Kristie

I like to make my own costumes for Halloween, this year I was Danny Fenton from the cartoon Danny Phantom. -Sierra

My favorite costume was my Scarlett O'Hara dress. It was a long dress with hoopskirts. I really enjoyed being dressed like a southern belle. -Cheryl

My favorite Halloween memory took place when I was something like 10 years old. I dressed up as a pumpkin. A simple innocent costume. Well, my little sister was 4 and did not seem to think so. She was terrified of my costume. She hid under a blanket and just started bawling the first time I tried it on. It got so bad that I agreed to take off my costume and make a new one really fast so that I could get her to go trick-or-treating with me. I went as a "Got Milk?" sign instead. But to this day we do not let my sister forget it. -Jade

Halloween was always a block party at my house. I have two twin brothers that were born on Halloween, and then two years later my sister who was also born on Halloween. The big joke was that I got tricked instead of treated! :) -Bobbye

We always go trick or treating and I go with my friends and we always have a HUGE party. -Emily

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It's so interesting hearing about all of the many different ways people spend their Halloween nights! :) Thanks again everyone, and get ready for my HHHUUUUUGGEEE winter extravaganza I have planned in December - more on that later..