My Halloween: My Ghoul Friday

Five questions asked over a glowing Jack o’Lantern, under an Autumn moon obscured by passing clouds…in between mouthfuls of candy corn…with My Ghoul Friday who’s the kind of girl you want to have around every day of the week, but especially on Halloween…

Why is Halloween important to you?

Halloween is the one season of the year when the general public gets on the same page as they engage in play, and they see beauty in the dark.

Describe your ideal Halloween.

That’s really tough. My ideal Halloween might be a bright, crisp, but not too cold day that started with pumpkin flavoured coffee before heading to a pumpkin patch that had different types and colours of pumpkins and gourds. After choosing a wheelbarrow full of goodies, and maybe consuming some hot apple cider, I would make my way to a place in the country – maybe a cottage – where I and my closest friends (Oooo and let’s throw in a number of fellow haunters I’ve always wanted to meet) would spend the afternoon adding the final touches to decorations (would be nice if there was a barn available). There would be cooking over a fire and music as we got closer to evening. And the night would be capped off with some excellent horror movies and perhaps a few games. I suppose that’s a bit boring. Even if we added attending a Halloween fair or parade in the afternoon, my ideal Halloween doesn’t get very fancy.

What Halloween collectibles do you cherish, or hate, or both?

I have a plastic vintage black cat & pumpkin lamp I found at a second hand store for a dollar. It sits in my office year-round.

When was your very first Halloween, the one where you really knew it was Halloween, and how was it?

If you’ve ever gone to my “About Me” page, you’ve read the story. It started when my parents let me spray paint a tombstone on the concrete wall of our basement for my Grade 4 Halloween party.

It was my first real Halloween party, and I wanted it to be great. I constructed a haunted house the length of the basement and led people through dangling, slimy snakes hanging from the ceiling – just one example of the many forms and obstacles waiting for them in the shadow. I hadn’t gotten over my fear of the dark, and I was deathly afraid of being in the basement alone (never mind with the lights off), but to make sure I could see well enough to safely guide each guest one by one through the haunted space, I sat alone in the pitch black basement for 20 minutes before the party goers even started to arrive.

That’s when she was born, the little ghoul in the basement. Since then, she has come back to me every year, usually in late summer, ready to build creatures for Halloween. Sure, she’s there throughout the other months, peeking through my eyes at the newest horror film being released, or tickling my neck so I turn to see the brochure for the Festival of Fear coming to the city.

What’s the one Halloween question you want to be asked and what’s your answer?

Q: Can we, the general public, help you with time and donations to make your ideal Halloween come true?

A: And my answer is yes 😉