2017 Halloween Mood Display

The last three weeks have really put a damper on my Halloween enjoyment due to the stress of not knowing if I would have a job come the end of October. At the end of last week though, that stress finally went away as I was offered a new position in my current department and it would be considered a promotion. That instantly helped my mood and this weekend I've felt like I can finally get back to my Halloween enjoyment ... and with that enjoyment comes the annual Halloween Mood Display!

If you've been following this blog for any amount of time, you know how this works. Every year I take the mantle between my living room and kitchen and load it up with miscellaneous Halloween/fall stuff. It really helps lift my spirits (no pun intended) when I've had a long day a work or if I just need something to stare at blankly for a few minutes. This year I went for a simplistic theme, completely different from the pop culture-esque stuff from years past.

Here it is ...

Behold! This year's Halloween Mood Display! Let's explore from left to right ...

First, we have a partially burnt Trick or Treat flavored (is that even the right word?) candle from Yankee Candle. The smell of candy corn and buttercream is completely gone but the ambience when it's burning and the lights are off is really cool. Plus, how can you not have a candle with the name "Trick or Treat" in a Halloween display?

Next is the Mysterious Mansion from this year's Lemax Spooky Town collection. I bought this piece at an early fall season sale at Michaels when they were running a 40% off promotion back in mid-August. I wasn't too impressed with the selection this year but this was the best of the lot. Plus, the damn thing makes noise!!

The orange trees, bone bridge, and creepy road sign were picked up at Michaels last year and are just little accent pieces to accompany the larger buildings. I've deemed this light up pumpkin simply "Great Pumpkin".

Here's last year's major addition, the Spooky Town Gas N' Ghoul. While it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of its counterpart, it's still a very fine piece because of all the detail involved.

Finally, we have another buttercream candle from Bed, Bath, and Beyond in an awesome black jar that says "Eat, Drink & Be Scary". Certainly those are great words to live by during the Halloween season. Also, there's a Zombie Kenny Funko figure and a Charlie Brown Halloween themed piece.

So, there you have it, this year's Halloween Mood Display. I challenge you to build your own and get out there and make it the best Halloween season you can!

The Operation Pumpkin Festival

Image from Operation Pumpkin website
www.operation-pumpkin.org

A yearly tradition that my family and I have is to go to the Operation Pumpkin Festival in downtown Hamilton, Ohio. The unique thing about it compared to other local fairs and festivals is that it's held right smack in the middle of downtown Hamilton. My wife likes to go because her candle and cupcake vendors have a booth set up there. I like to go because it's a fall festival. It's a win win for everyone so we headed over last Saturday to check it out.

The festival opens at 9:00 usually but the unfortunate thing about weekend was that is was cold and extremely windy when we went in the morning. So much so that some of the vendors and the rides weren't even open yet due to the wind. In past years, the place has been crazy at 10:00 in the morning but not this year due to the cold and wind. However, the pictures above should give you a general idea of what the festival encompasses. If you look at the top picture, you'll see a monument in the background. That's how far the festival stretches.

Pumpkin carving is one of the draws to the festival. Every year they bring out expert pumpkin carvers to do creative and unusual pumpkins. Their display/workshop in set up right in the middle of one of the main intersections of downtown.

Another major draw is the giant pumpkin weigh-off from the Southern Ohio Giant Pumpkin Growers (SOGPG for short). Some of these pumpkins can weigh in excess of 2,000 pounds. As I'm writing this, the results aren't available yet but just by the pictures, you can see how enormous these pumpkins are. I was also able to snap a picture of my wife and my son next to one.

A few random pictures. The first is a monument in the middle of the street to Alexander Hamilton, who the city was named after. The other one is a giant box of pumpkins that I took while trying to embrace my artistic side.

All the small businesses such as craft boutiques, markets, and bakeries were open as well. We stopped into the Almond Sisters bakery, which is a place that was featured on the local morning news recently and someplace we wanted to try for a while. As you can see by the display cases, they had pastries and cookies of all kinds available. 

We picked up a pumpkin pastry, which was filled with cream cheese and a very nice pumpkin filling, a red velvet ganache brownie which a red velvet brownie topped with chocolate ganache and chocolate chips, and a geode, which is a chocolate chip cooke stuffed with a brownie. The pastry was amazing but the other two things were a bit of a let down. We'll definitely be back though to try some of their Christmas offerings.

On the way out of the bakery, I spotted this graffiti mural on the side of a building ...

Someone is obviously a fan of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and drew this fantastic piece of art. I tried to get a picture of it without the glare from the window but this was the best I could do. All in all, despite the cold, windy weather and the absence of some of the vendors due to such, we still had a great time and definitely will be continuing our tradition next year.

The Homecoming Parade

A sure sign that fall is upon the little town where I live is the return of high school football, with the biggest game of the year being the annual Homecoming game. I'm not sure how it is in other parts of the country, especially in big cities, but every year there is a huge parade down the main road out to the high school which is just outside the city limits. Hundreds of people come from everywhere in town and all the smaller surrounding villages and set up shop along the road, with some even tailgating, in preparation of the parade.

I personally didn't have to do any of that. All I had to do, along with my son and my wife, was to walk down a few feet to the corner and take in the parade. Living just off the main road in town definitely has its advantages sometimes. Anyway, the parade set off from the city park around 6:00 and reached my street roughly a half hour later. We could tell it was getting close as traffic has ceased and the faint sound of snare drums inched towards us. Then it came, marching steadily westward up the hill, past the IGA market, and through a small batch of trees and arrived with great fanfare. I was ready to document its arrival with my camera (aka iPhone) in hand.

As you can tell by these photos, this was the marching band and color guard. I considered trying out for the band once in middle school, but seeing as you had to pay for the instrument and the fact that I was (and still am) horrible at making music of any sort, I passed on it. My favorite shot here is the one I took from behind after the color guard had marched past. 

These are the floats made my each class. I'm not sure what the theme was and was confused as one of them said "Seven Mile High" on the back of it. The problem is that there is no Seven Mile High School, everyone from Seven Mile goes to Edgewood. Logistical deficiencies aside, the only float that made any sense to me is the one that says "Let the Knights Fall" as that's who we were playing in the game, the Northwest Knights

Nearly every high school sport was represented in the parade, from ladies volleyball and ladies golf, to the cross country team and football and cheerleading squads from varsity all the way down to the K-1 team.

Along with Trenton, every fire department and rescue squad in the school district was represented as well, including the rural ones from local townships.

Of course local businesses have to get involved too. Lake Bailee is a recreational park and gun range that hosts an annual haunted hayride. I've never gone to it as there is one in Springboro that is really good, but maybe one year I'll go down to check this one out

This photo should give you an idea of how long the parade was. Past the fire engines in the photo, it was just simply local businesses in cars. Not long after this we headed back home as my son was staring to get bored and it was nearly time to get settled in for the evening as I had work the next morning.

One last shot, this time of my son watching the parade.

The next day was the actual homecoming game itself, which Edgewood soundly won over Northwest 42-14. It's always a good day when the football team wins the homecoming game and it's even better when the whole area comes together to enjoy a community event like this.

The 2016 Halloween Mood Display (and a Halloween Contest!)

It's that time again! It's time for the reveal of the annual Halloween Mood Display!

A bit of backstory first ... I started doing this in 2014 when my Halloween spirit was really low. Why it was so low that year, I'm not sure. So I took a spare table and got inspired by the Halloween mood tables that Matt from Dinosaur Dracula does every year and created my Halloween mood table. Needless to say, that was an instant spirit lifter. Last year, I wanted to do another table but seeing as my son likes to get into things within his reach, I opted to use a ledge on an archway between my living room and kitchen and it turned out pretty well.

This year, I decided to use the same ledge for the display ...

Here's a before picture, a blank canvas, ripe to be built on with some crazy Halloween decor

And afterward ....

Behold, the 2016 Halloween Mood Display! Let's take a tour ....

A must for any Halloween display is activities. My blu-ray box set of the Halloween series is a must and I grabbed a few other movies as well. Even though it's hard to see, the other films are Friday the 13th, Signs, and Evil Dead 2. This is also the Ghostbusters portion of the program with the Slimer figure I bought at Horrorhound earlier this year, Winston hanging out in Ecto-1, and Ray looking from afar.

A closer look at Winston chilling in the car and sharing a word with Jason Voorhees.

Here's the centerpiece as I described previously, the Spookytown Gas N Ghoul. I went back to Michaels and grabbed a few accent pieces that were 40% off. I think the orange trees and the road sign give it an extra creepy feel. I'll admit, I'd be a little freaked out if I rolled up to this place in the middle of the night.

The land of horror icon Funko figures. Returning from last year is Billy from Saw, Ash from Evil Dead, and Michael Myers. New this year to the gathering is Freddy Krueger and the Mummy.

Finally, a Trick or Treat flavored candle, which really candy corn and butter cream, from Yankee Candle and my wife's melted wax warmer which she has loaded fall flavors into.

After building this, I definitely feel the Halloween spirit more than ever, and so will my living room as it will be covered in the glow of candy corn lights from now until I take this sucker down in November. I would definitely encourage you to take an afternoon and make one of these for yourself, even if it's not as big as this.  Speaking of which, I think I'll run a little contest for this ...

To enter, simply build a Halloween Mood Display of your own and write a blog post about it, similar to what I did here talking about the things you included, maybe even how it helps you get in the Halloween spirit. Leave a link to the post in the comments below. As a reminder, your building it for no one but you. It just needs to be something that reminds you to embrace the Halloween spirit and enjoy the season. Since this is a baseball card blog by heart, your prize will be a bubble mailer of cards from your favorite MLB team.

If you need some tips on how to build one, check out my mood display from last year here and also feel free to check out past mood tables of the person who started this whole thing, Matt of Dinosaur Dracula, here, here, here, and here.

This contest will be open from now until October 21st. Those who entered will be tossed into a randomizer that will be randomized a lucky 13 times and the winner will be announced on Halloween itself.

Let the fun begin!

Project Halloween Begins .... NOW!!

Welcome to Project Halloween 2016!

Let's do this.

Project Halloween is born out of a love of the fall and Halloween season that I discovered about ten years ago. Back in 2007, a few friends and I came up with the idea to do a video reviewing Halloween candy, decorations, and the like and put it online the Friday before Halloween. While we were doing that, I was the main person going out to stores getting goofy candies, rubber masks, cheap props, etc that we could all review and talk about during the special. During that time, I discovered a love for the holiday and the season that I never knew I had. Those specials continued yearly and eventually made it onto YouTube until our last one in 2014. There wasn't one last year as everyone's schedules made it incredibly difficult to get together and film.

I know most, if not all, of you come here for the trading card content. Between now and November, that will be on the back burner in favor of Project Halloween. Come November, once we're all suffering from a Halloween hangover and I've blown through at least 100 cans of Mountain Dew and untold boxes of pumpkin flavored junk food, cards will be back in full force. Trading cards are around and available all year, while fall and Halloween only comes around once, so why not embrace it while I can. It is my favorite time of year after all.

So what is in store for Project Halloween? Anything and everything! The "Hallo-Switch" is in full effect where stores have started clearing out their beach chairs, grills, and school supplies and are replacing them with masks, candy, plastic weaponry, shrunken heads, costumes, etc. That, along with the amount of seasonal food already available (and judging by what's out there, it's going to be a very heavy year on the pumpkin spice), should make for a fun Halloween season. I can't guarantee a new post every day but there will be plenty to go around, don't worry.

Besides the Halloween standards like candy and decor, there will be all kinds of other stuff ... fall festivals, farm markets, horror films, trick-or-treat night, seasonal beers, and lots of other random junk that I'm sure hasn't even shown up yet but probably will between now and October 31st. Oh yeah, the blog got a little Halloween makeover just to make sure the spooky season is done right.

Since this is a kick-off to Halloween and in order to get you into the Halloween spirit there are a number of things you could do right now, but the biggest one of all is to get out and do some shopping! Call it a Halloween treasure hunt if you will. Sure most stores may not have a full-fledged display out yet but if you just look at little closer or go out of your way to look, you never know what you might find. Now is the time where each evening walk, each trip to the store, and a million, trillion mundane, routine items we do on a daily basis are now all out adventures and I encourage you to take advantage of it.

So come on in, boys and girls, sit down, and stay for a while, there's nothing to be scared of. My only hope is that you have as much fun reading my two month ode to this time of year as I do writing it. If it helps you embrace and rediscover the best time of the year, then I've done my job and far as making it fun. I hope you as readers enjoy it and I encourage you to leave comments and spread the word if you do.

For the next two months, we're going to go crazy folks. Enjoy it, savor it, make it your own. Halloween only comes around once a year, it's our duty to do it right. Now, do yourself a favor and kick back with some popcorn, your favorite drink, and Friday the 13th: Part 3.

We're gonna party until we're dead.