Halloweenify your holidays!

If you’re like us at Netherworld Haunted House, you live for Halloween. You cannot wait for October to roll around, for the leaves to turn, the air to cool off, and independent pumpkin patches to sprout up along the highways. The rest of the year serves as nothing more than an eleven month waiting period for your favorite day to arrive.

But why wait? 364 days is far too long to endure while you plot and prepare your home haunt and the latest and greatest jack-o-lantern designs. With just a little bit of imagination, you can turn every holiday into a Halloween-infused celebration. Don’t let the greeting card companies dictate the aesthetic of your monthly festivities – with year’s end decorating in full swing, let’s take a quick look at a few ways to “Halloweenify” your holidays, and make every celebration feel like 10/31!

First of all, forget silver, gold, red and green. There’s no rule that says your Christmas tree can’t flourish in orange and black. If you’re going the artificial route, there are a number of different color options available, including black.
A white or red tree can make a dynamic base for your Halloween holiday tree, as well, depending on how you intend to accent it. You may wish to start with some red icicles, or for an even eerier effect try glow-in-the-dark icicles

Now you’ve prepped the canvas – time to spice it up!

Ornaments are an easy outlet for your creative expression. You can turn pretty much any Halloween icon into a tree-ready bauble, with a little bit of finesse. Rubber bats, mini skulls, or even plastic toy spider rings can be used to adorn the branches. If you feel crafty, a quick search online will produce tons of vintage Halloween images. Simply print them out and cut them to fit a frame ornament, available at most hobby stores . If you prefer straight-from-the-box to do-it-yourself, there a few companies that offer stylish Halloween ornaments .

If your tree lights don’t give off heat, why not string up that leftover candy corn for a different type of garland (don’t want a dripping mess one evening!)? And you can always pull out those strings of jack-o-lantern patio lights to drape on your tree or fireplace mantle.

Tree topper? How about a decorative pumpkin or black cat candy bucket? Just cut a small hole in the bottom, slide it over that top bough, and you’re all set. Or a grinning skull in a Santa hat may be more to your liking – the possibilities are endless. However you choose to spruce up your spruce for the season, there are plenty of options available to make it a unique statement and help continue to enjoy Halloween into the New Year (speaking of which, there’s no need to count down the seconds watching a shiny ball drop – a leering jack-o-lantern can be just as effective).

Of course, you can always add a splash of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” or some fine Krampus gear for a bit of flair in your Halloween-themed holidays – there’s a fair amount of items to be found around the web to make that happen. So whether you decide to cram a bit of spookiness into this year’s season, or start planning for your 2012 holidays, we hope you’re able to unleash a little mad-scientist skill and enjoy All Hallow’s year round!

It’s a simple enough question, really. You hear it every year, when your homemade Ronald Reagan-as-a-rapper costume doesn’t go over so well, or the folks at the office Halloween dress-up party don’t get your whole Star-Trek-red-uniform-zombie idea. You tried – you had a unique idea and you were depending on the intuitive powers of those in your orbit to catch the joke. Oh well, there’s always next year.

But more to the point, what ARE you supposed to be? Is there a method behind the madness of Halloween costumes? A spark that ignited the masquerade craze flame? Where exactly did this notion come from, and what does dressing up say about us? To answer these questions, we have to dig way back in the history books, to where it all began…

The holiday of Halloween, taking place every October 31st (in case you didn’t already know!), is believed to have experienced its birth in the Celtic festival of Samhain. This marked the end of harvest, and the beginning of the “dark days” of autumn and winter. It was believed that around this time of year the mortal and supernatural worlds were closest to one another in proximity, and in order to ward off evil spirits large bonfires were lit. People would walk between bonfires with their livestock, believed to be a cleansing ritual, and the bones of slaughtered animals were thrown in. Sacrifices – possibly human in nature – were made to the gods in an effort to aid in this endeavor. Although most historians disagree that Samhain is the proper origin of Halloween, at the very least this lent influence to the evolving traditions of the holiday, paving the way for many of the customs we now embrace as part of this celebration.

Later, the Christian holy days of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, falling on November 1st and 2nd, paid tribute to the saints and recently deceased souls which had not yet ascended to heaven. It was believed that these spirits walked the earth until All Saints’ Day, and on All Hallows’ Eve – October 31st – the dead had one final opportunity for revenge on any who had wronged them in mortal life. In order to hide themselves from any such vengeful entities, potential victims would disguise themselves with masks and costumes.

The practice of donning a costume and knocking on doors for candy for the holiday appears to have begun around the fifteenth century in Western Europe, evolving into the late 1800′s when Scottish citizens would masquerade (known as guising) and visit homes with carved out turnips – not pumpkins – to receive cakes, fruit and money. All Saints’ Day and All Souls Day’ were celebrated with costume parades and parties, and while rural farmers celebrated the holiday as a fertility rite in the United Kingdom, their cosmopolitan counterparts in the cities took a more carnivalesque approach. It wasn’t until 1911 that guising hit North America, with children taking up costumes and trick-or-treating around the neighborhood in Kingston, Ontario.

Early Halloween costumes tended to reflect the pagan and gothic nature of the holiday, and for the most part were considered child’s play. Costumes traditionally featured spookier elements, depicting ghosts, witches, devils, skeletons and a variety of other supernatural icons, obviously influenced by the superstitious roots of the holiday itself. They were strictly homemade, until the 1930′s when companies like Ben Cooper, Inc. began to release manufactured costumes at the retail level, to capitalize on the increasing popularity of trick-or-treating in the United States. As the years progressed, the motif of costuming evolved to include historical figures and pop culture characters, and today it’s possible to find a Halloween costume depicting pretty much any aspect of modern life. Now knowing the original purpose of the disguise, you may want to be a bit more selective in your choice of costumes – you never know who an angry displaced spirit may be looking for.

Large retail chains now stock plenty of costumes and props every year as Halloween rolls around, featuring everything from children’s’ costumes to adult fashions to outfits designed for pets. Role-playing on the fan convention circuit has produced an entire generation of advanced costumers, who seem to make any day of the year Halloween with lavish self-produced ensembles that rival the best of Hollywood. Needless to say, this is one tradition that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

So next Halloween, when someone spots you in your cape and mask made of various Louisville Sluggers and asks “what are you supposed to be?”, instead of answering “Batman!” (get it?), look them square in the eye and reply “I’m hiding from an earthbound evil entity wishing to exact vengeance upon me”.

That’ll have them scratching their head!

As much as we at NETHERWORLD Haunted House love a Halloween celebration, what we love even more is ANOTHER Halloween celebration. And the only way to ensure that this happens is to always put safety first.

Obviously, common sense is the key to a safe Halloween. Following the simple safety instructions on decorations and lights can go a remarkably long way in providing a safe environment this trick or treat season (despite what we all say, instructions are NOT for losers!). Five or ten minutes reviewing the guidelines up front can prevent a tremendous amount of problems later.

With that in mind, here are a few helpful links to provide information that can make your Halloween decorating or special event as safe and comfortable as possible for the (in)humans you invite to celebrate with you. Please take a moment to browse through these informative sites and make the most of your All Hallow's festivities!

Halloween Safety.com
http://www.halloween-safety.com/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/family/halloween/

Keep Kids Healthy.com
http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/welcome/autumn/halloween_safety.html

ASPCA- animals deserve to enjoy the holiday too!
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/pet-care-tips/halloween-safety-tips.aspx

US Consumer Product Safety Commission
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/hallow.html

Halloween Magazine.com provides an updated interactive game to educate children on Halloween safety:
http://www.halloweenmagazine.com/play.html

So you just came back from your local haunted attraction, and you’re thinking how “easy” it would be to throw one of your own. Your head is full of ideas on whipping one of these things together at home, and scaring the pants off your friends and neighbors. Well, before you begin cutting clever tombstones out of cardboard and stuffing old Uncle Zeke’s Sunday best full of leaves for prominent placement in your front porch rocking chair, we recommend reading up a bit and finding the safest and easiest ways to produce your very own Halloween haunted house (or Christmas, or Easter, or Groundhog Day – we don’t judge, and most ghosts don’t really follow a calendar).

Your local craft and department stores typically carry simple decor and animatronics, but if you wish to expand your environment and spice things up a bit from the norm, you can add a large amount of boo for a small amount of buck. Below are a few links to sites that offer advice and instruction on how to produce props and effects, from the relatively simple to the more elaborate. As always, we urge you to read carefully, use caution, follow common sense and have a very safe and happy Halloween!

Haunt Project.com offers a wide variety of info on – well – haunt projects. Categorized, with photos and video, this site has an extensive catalog of ideas.
http://hauntproject.com/

Eyes of Halloween.com, while not as extensive as Haunt Project, has a nice selection of projects for the beginning haunter. They also have a nice haunt finder, categorized by state, to help you map out your autumn journey of fear…
http://eyesofhalloween.com/how.html

Always Halloween.com also features a brief array of ideas and instructions.
http://alwayshalloween.com/howto/howto.htm

Of course, you can always depend on eHow.com to provide a plethora of info – everything from pumpkin carving ideas to help with costumes, parties, and recipes.
http://www.ehow.com/halloween/

Good Housekeeping has been keeping people up to date on how-to help for decades.
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/holiday-ideas/halloween-decorations

How to Halloween is a site devoted to assisitng you with producing your own props and decorations.
http://howtohalloween.com/

Click here to find out more about The Big Boo!

http://www.atlanta.net/camp/halloween11/trick.aspx

Yes, that is indeed where the traditional Halloween jack-o-lantern finds its roots – while Ireland and Scotland have carved turnips for ages, Americans turned to the larger, easier-to-carve pumpkin in the 1830′s and it’s been an iconic part of the holiday ever since. See, while we are all fairly familiar with the typical symbolism of Halloween, this particular holiday has evolved and transformed in a number of ways over the years.

For example, while we equate October 31st with rapping on neighborhood doors and asking for candy, our friends across the pond initially collected standard food goods on Hallowmas (November 1) in exchange for the promise of prayers for the deceased on All Soul’s Day (November 2). This practice was known as Souling in the middle ages, and led to the more common modern practice of trick-or-treating by way of Guising – costumed people would collect cakes, fruit and money upon visiting homes with carved-out turnips. Obviously folks wizenedup after a while – basic physics proves that you can fit a whole lot more free food and candy into a pumpkin than the average turnip…

The Halloween costume itself has undergone a bit of change since it became tradition to disguise oneself before taking to the night in an attempt to gather the lion’s share of sugary treats. Once primarily dominated by supernatural characters such as witches, ghosts, skeletons and monsters, modern costumes run the gamut from recognizable pop culture figures to various animals, ninjas, princesses, celebrities and more.  As Halloween parties have gained immense popularity, so have imaginative costumes. No longer content to simply grab something off the rack, many Halloween fans go to great lengths to conceive and wear unique, inventive costumes which challenge the creative minds of party-goers. Hence, the ever-popular fellow dressed as a box of corn flakes with knives sticking out of him from every possible angle: cereal Killer. Get it?

Party games such as bobbing for apples have become a steadfast component of the contemporary Halloween celebration, but it is interesting to make note of some traditional games from generations past. Unmarried women were once led to believe that if they sat in a darkened room on Halloween night, staring into a mirror, the face of their future husband would appear to them. Should they be destined to die alone and unwed, a skull would reveal itself instead. Before apples were caramel coated and dropped into a tub of water for bobbing, they were used on Halloween in divining a woman’s future mate. They would carve an apple in one long, continuous strip, and toss the peel over their shoulder, where it would land in the shape of the first letter of their impending husband’s name. Like there was ever really a need for the invention of computer dating…

Halloween iconography has also undergone it’s fair share of evolution.  Although it is not known for certain where the traditional colors of orange and black come from, it can be assumed that they are an Americanized reflection of the autumn color changes which take place around the same time as Halloween. Many of the elements of this holiday’s imagery stem from this same source – pumpkins, scarecrows, and corn husks are all prevalent during this time of year and therefore lend themselves to the style of the season. Yet the inclusion of black cats, skeletons, witches and ghosts have sprung forth from the supernatural nature of All’s Hallow Even and it’s superstitious history of honoring the dead. As time passed, Halloween became more of a novelty celebration of all things spooky, instead of the sacred day it once was.

Regardless of its varied history, Halloween is beloved by countless millions the world over, who enjoy the opportunity to slip out of their own skin and into someone – or someTHING – else’s for a change. We may outgrow our childlike love of treats as we get older, but true fans of Halloween never get over the thrill that comes along with the crisp, cool air of autumn and the eerie excitement it brings.

We invite you to share your Halloween with us this October at NETHERWORLD Haunted House – Because Halloween lives here!