More Halloween Goodies

You may remember me mentioning I come from a family that throws nothing away.

Ever.

Well, that's apparent when digging through the Halloween boxes.

Literally generations of little-kid-made construction paper cutouts, party favors, and inexpensive cardboard decorations: from cool vintage stuff to flat-out antiques. I don't like to admit that the ones from my own childhood are considered vintage now too, but I guess they are.

Sigh. 

If you buy special napkins for a party and use all but 2 or 3, what do you do with the extras? You don't use them (they're fancy printed party napkins for heaven's sake...why look at the coin we dropped on those plates alone!) and throwing away a couple unmatched plates or napkins...unheard of. So what's left to do? Well of course, you leave them in the bottom of the box of Halloween stuff. 
And these little gems (below)...love them! Each tops a cardboard box which must have contained candy or other party favors, and they're labeled with my grandparents' first names...clever little handmade place-cards for a spooky dinner party? Probably some creative friend from their Camera Club. I wish I could see the place settings and the rest of the party decorations...maybe pictures of the party exist in one of the hundreds of little yellow boxes of slides that my sister has now (have you run across those, Mary?).   

I love the old Halloween decorations because they were, well...sorta creepy and disturbing. No one seemed afraid they might scare the children with them back then...it was Halloween for crying out loud, stop sobbing and covering your eyes, cowboy up and enjoy the creepy toys and decorations!

This teeny tiny plaster skull is on a wire (maybe he had a body at one time, or was just meant for sticking in stuff) and along with his spooky little "bejeweled" eyes, has the faded remains of sparkles on the rest of him. Or, he might have just been stored next to something sparkly. It's hard to tell. 

Have yourself a spookilicious day tomorrow!

Comments

[BJ Lantz]

Wow - how fun was that? Thanks so much for sharing that vintage journey. It made me think of the Halloweens in the little town I started out in (high in the Adirondack mountains). Of course, back then you could get a caramel apple from a neighbor and you could actually eat it. We'd get popcorn balls and homemade treats too and not think a thing of it. Remember those awful plastic masks that made your face sweat and the elastic band pulled your hair? My grandfather grew pumpkins in his garden for me every year and would give me a set of his old work clothes to make a fall leaf stuffed scarecrow dude to sit on the front step. He gave out full-sized Hershey bars (of course, I don't think they had mini's back then). He always put one in my plastic orange pumpkin before we left to trick or treat - to start me out. I don't think I saw one single kid carrying one of those plastic pumpkins this year. When I and the other grandkids got older, he would make us each a special trick or treat bag filled with good candy, fruit and little unexpected goodies. Yeah, he was pretty cool, my Grandpa was.

Thanks for sharing the memories BJ...your Grandpa sounds like quite a guy, and yes I remember the sweaty-hair-pulling masks, the awesome plastic pumpkins, AND full-size candy on Halloween! Good stuff...