favorite candy:
kitkats, nerds, reeses,
anything with chocolate + pretzels
favorite "spooky" movie:
scooby doo and the ghoul school, monster house,
what we do in the shadows
favorite halloween activity:
decorating, going trick-or-treating
favorite halloween motifs:
ghosts, graveyards, pumpkins, candy corn
favorite halloween "monster":
frankenstein's monster
favorite "spooky" books:
frankenstein, bunnicula, garlic + the vampire,
paper girls if that counts (lmao)

one of my favorite parts about halloween is all the decorations!! i tend to start decorating in september and keep the bulk of my decorations up until mid-december. i don't really get all that pumped for christmas so it isn't a big deal at all. and i do keep some of my decorations up year-round!! i used to get a lot of my decorations from target, but i have been boycotting them for the past few years and now i get most things second-hand, on ebay, or make them myself. click the images below to see some pictures of my halloween decorations.

some items of note: a paper mache enoch from over the garden wall i made myself, glow-in-the-dark window clings i use on my greenhouse cabinet, clay pillsbury halloween cookie wall hangings i made myself, various halloween beanie babies, a giant red m&m wearing a witch hat, and some mcdonald's boo buckets i have repurposed as planters ♡

i don't often dress up for halloween. it's not that i don't want to. i would love to. but i often find myself more focused on my 7 year old's costume than my own. i do, however, happen to own a lot of halloween t-shirts. most of them are vintage/second-hand. i don't exactly collect them? i'm just drawn to them and they make up a significant part of my regular wardrobe. so i often just wear one of those for halloween, but of course, that isn't quite as *special*
since i wear them throughout the year. it is a goal of mine for halloween 2026 to do a *proper* costume.
here are some of my shirts~

got this one a few years ago off ebay!! the green/yellow parts glow in the dark.
one of my favorites, i wear it all the time.
it is starting to get a few holes in it and i am *freaking out*

cropped this one, got it off ebay. very cute, unfortunately not one i wear too often!!

monster cereals shirt! these characters make me feel really nostalgic despite never eating any of these cereals
(and not really liking cereal at all lmao?)

i really like m&m shirts??? and this one is halloween? like what more could you ever want
got this one off ebay

halloween kewpie shirt by artist danny brito
cropped this one as well, i really like to wear it with red or bright green!!

kept seeing this one on ebay for like $80, but managed to find one for $25. the graphic glows in the dark!!

another lovely halloween m&m shirt. got this one off of poshmark!!

this one i got sort of recently, from walmart of all places.
it also glows in the dark, which was the main reason i decided to purchase it.
while it is really cute, i find this type of fabric??? absolutely horrific.
every bit of lint, cat hair, etc. is attracted to it.

the CUTEST vampire snoopy sweatshirt. it glows as well!!!!
got this one off of ebay and i love it so much

okay this section kind of combines two of my favorite themes. halloween and food. i get really pumped by the combinations of these things in a way that is difficult for me to explain and so instead i express that by making it a whole pillar of my personality.

i do collect a fair share of mcdonald's items and of course, mcdonald's halloween is absolutely no exception.

i recently acquired these halloween-themed collectable melamine plates (pictured right) and i love how they look hanging on my wall!! i do not have any of the original mcdonald's boo buckets, i believe the first ones came out in 1986 anyhow, and i didn't come around until 1993. i do have the revival ones from 2022, which i have repurposed as planters on top of my fridge!! i have not been impressed with the boo buckets from the past couple of years? the art style just isn't doing it for me and it feels very rushed.

i have collected all of the first series of halloween mcnuggets from 1993!! i am a *big* fan of these little guys. i want to build a proper shelf to display them all soon. i'm thinking a coffin-shaped shelf would be really cute!! they are all adorable, but i think the mummy one might be my favorite, specifically because it has hetereochromia and a cute spider buddy on its' head~

i also have this VHS copy of the wacky adventures of ronald mcdonald "scared silly". i got this off ebay this year (2025) because my 7 year old was interested in it and my friend amanda highly recommended it to me ♡ if the animation style looks familiar that is because it probably is. it is by the same studio responsible for rocket power and as told by ginger!! it's very cute and fun and whimsical, my favorite character is sundae the dog. the voice acting for this character absolutely FRIES me. (yes, that is kind of a mcdonalds pun but also the voice acting is like really funny, okay.)

baking some of the halloween pillsbury cookies has become a bit of a tradition for me. i'm admittedly not really into sugar cookies. they do taste a little bland. but the goofy little designs on the pillsbury ones have me in a chokehold. i juice them up by adding them on top of chocolate chip cookie dough and they are absolutely perfect!! i bake some every year to take to my friend molly's over the garden wall watch party~
i have seen some other interesting recipes for them, including ice cream sandwiches, brownies, etc. so i may give those a try at some point too.

i look forward to the spider donuts from dunkin every year. if we're being honest, i would actually prefer a regular chocolate donut when it comes down to the taste. i am not very adventurous with my donuts. i like a little chocolate. a little sprinkle. but the novelty! the camp! the silliness!! of the spider donuts has me captivated. and dunkin has actually made some pretty amusing merch with them? keychains, shirts, costumes, straw toppers, and even a giant yard inflatable (which i would absolutely purchase if i had a yard or a bigger porch). i attempted to suggest an idea to dunkin donuts corporate for a spider donut bean bag chair. the idea is that the little munchkin in the middle would be a removable pillow. i was ignored lmao. but that did motivate me to take matters into my own hands and i made my own. it's quite comfy. and my friends love sitting in it when they come over ♡

(click the images above to see the bean bag chair + some of my other spider donut inspired creations~)

while a lot of my halloween + food obsessions revolve around nostalgia, these are a fairly recent addition. these first came out in 2024, but they definitely have the charm of 90's happy meal toys. modeled after their iconic frozen treat, these frosty frights figures from wendy's feature the treats as fun, spooky characters. each figure also has a "chase" version. most of them are just neon variants of the character that glows under blacklight. while that is a cool concept, for now i have just focused on collecting the "regular" versions. here are the ones i have collected so far (pictured left to right across)

ice patch the jack-o-lantern frosty
franken frosty the frankenstein's monster frosty
cold spell the wonderful witch frosty
frosty bite the vampire frosty
purrmafrost the unlucky black cat frosty
captain coldsnap the wandering pirate frosty
junior the classic frosty (skeleton version)
meltin the slime monster frosty
coolie ghoulie the ecotoplasmic ghost frosty
yummy the terrifying mummy frosty
chillie gillie the lagoon creature frosty

could not complete this section without including some neopets spooky foods!!

the haunted woods is obviously my favorite area of neopia. and i really love how silly and creative all of the spooky food items are. they really check all the boxes for me: halloween, food, and early internet nostalgia. i definitely plan to get some tattoos inspired by some of these at some point!!

i have included some of my favorites here
hover over the pictures to discover each item's name.

i saw this at kroger. took a pic. idk. it's important.

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a place to chronicle the memories, adventures, and shenanigans of halloweenie seasons past!!

my friend kate ♡ came over to help me and my seven year old put up our decorations!! i did not really acquire many new decorations this year. i did pick up a giant eyeball from homegoods and some window clings for my grow cabinet, which i am very fond of. i am trying to move away from purchasing new halloween items and focus more on sourcing things from ebay. older halloween items tend to have more charm anyway.

every other year my job hosts an employee pumpkin carving contest. one of the few opportunities i get to flex my BFA at work. i did join in on the fun and won a $50 gift card for my efforts. i created a little papercut scene inside of a pumpkin featuring a ghost tending to his graveyard. i included some details of items we sell in store. (i work at a plant/garden supply store)

my cousin invited me to go to a halloween-themed coffee shop! apparently this particular coffee shop is themed this way year-round but they really go all in during the fall. they advertise an array of skull-shaped muffins and spooky themed drinks. i wasn't super hungry when we went so i just went with a matcha because i don't drink coffee lmao. but it was lovely to catch up with her and absorb all the fun decor there

i splurged a bit and purchased some new art for my living room area. i got a lovely print from artist veronica fish of the addams family movie poster!! i really love veronica's work, especially her use of bright color with black and the addams family is one of my 7 year old's favorite movies that we often watch together so i also like that it is meaningful to us in that way. i spray painted a custom frame for it and i am very pleased with how it looks amongst my other decor.

a few other exciting things that happened this halloween season: jim henson collaboration with genereal mills monster cereals. despite not really loving cereal i love it aesthetically??? i know that makes no sense to anyone but me but i find cereal box art to be so??? comforting?? idk. that's fine. they released a series of shorts featuring the main monster cereal characters (frankenberry, boo berry, and count chocula) as muppets!! so fun. dunkin donuts brought back the spider donut again. the purple one. i did not manage to get my hands on the keychain this year but i am certain i can find it on ebay or poshmark. i made my spider donut bean bag chair idea come to life and debuted it at my friend's over the garden wall viewing party!! everyone loved it and i am so glad i decided to make it myself. wendy's brought back their frosty frights toys. i don't know if my store only got one character but everytime we went we got the same one lol. so i ended up purchasing the rest off of ebay and gifting the extras to friends. spirit halloween started selling these CUTE blindbag series from culturefly that feature popular halloween characters/motifs reimagined as the silly melty beady eyed popsicles. i bought some for myself and for friends. they even have a scooby doo series. i am debating whether to make mine into keychains or maybe magnets. neopets added a lot of halloween pet styles!! i made myself a halloween kacheek. i have never been a huge fan of kacheeks but i think the halloween ones are really cute and i love the shade of green they are. i named him frankitten. honestly shocked that name wasn't taken. i also entered the neopets art gallery, which had been a goal of mine to do again, and my entry got in for the halloween themed gallery!!

as for the sacred day of october 31st itself, my friends and i went to an oddities museum and had such fun!! they had an exhibit in the front that was dedicated solely to vintage halloween decorations and it was such a wonderful curation. after that we went to an antique mall. for lunch we got hotpot from one of my favorite spots and then went to HMART to get coolish as a nice snack!! this year i made my friends spider donut magnets as halloween gifts. i like to give my loved ones halloween gifts versus christmas gifts and i usually like to focus on making things or supporting small businesses. and then of course me and the 7 year old went trick-or-treating. we made their costume this year, he went as the enderman from minecraft. i very quickly put together an MCR-inspired skeleton look. it can be a bit of a challenge navigating the evening as they get very excited and also they have a very specific way they like to do things and i am always a bit worried that people will misunderstand them. (for instance he is very specific about the kinds of candy he will/won't eat and he requests those items and would politely decline the offer of candy if they did not have the kind he was looking for lmao) but we always have such fun!! (click below to see more pictures~)

the halloweenie season does not end after october 31st to me, but rather continues until the end of november. the 7 year old and i went to a cemetery in downtown and had a nice stroll to admire the leaves. i think pecan trees might be my favorite fall foliage here where we live. they are so vibrant!! (which is funny because i am allergic to pecans lmao) we had a little photshoot with the statuary in the graveyard. this is like my equivalent of taking them to JCpenney's to get a family photo done. the pictures turned out really cute!!
perfectly timed for the fall season, i had hoped that the guillermo del toro frankenstein would be released in more theatres so that me and my friends could go see it during october. sadly, there was only one theatre in the whole state that was showing it. i do not subscribe to any streaming services and was not about to start. but luckily one of my friend's parents does so we were able to use that to watch it and WOW. i really loved it. as someone who has read the book ~4 times and read many essays on it i was very happy with it and even though there were a lot of changes made from the source material, the changes were very thoughtful.