Starting Two New Halloween Traditions

I hope you’ve enjoyed our week of Halloween traditions; I know we’ve enjoyed sharing our fun with you. Sometimes, I think just talking about how much we love the holidays makes us even more excited, as we are inspired to add more traditions when we hear about all the fun things that others do. I know I’m always inspired to do more because everything just adds to the fun!

On the podcast, we talked about our favorite "Halloween" movies, and I made no secret of the fact that I am not a fan of horror flicks. But, while we were talking about it, we started listing off a lot of non-scary movies, as well as some old horror favorites that I grew up with that may have been "scary" at the time, and it inspired me to make my own custom list of movies for Halloween. Do note, however, that some of these movies do lean toward the scary or at least disturbing, so watch at your own risk!

Download the PDF

Another fall tradition I’ve been inspired to try this year is a month-long “October” mini scrapbook album. I’m a huge fan of several social media influencers like Dearly Dee, Traci Reed, Krystal Iduñate, and Ashley Horton, who all do October/Halloween themed albums, so, when Ali Edwards announced a new Halloween-themed kit, I knew I had to give it a go.

Part of the Ali Edwards Halloween kit.

I’ll be the first to admit that I need another project like I need another hole in my head. I am already way behind on my Project Life album, and I still haven’t finished my little camping traveler’s notebook from last year, nor my 2020 planner journal, to name just a few. But, much like the draw of my beloved December Daily project each year, I just couldn’t resist taking on another “quick” album. So, here I am, with a handful of printed photos and a lot of scrappin’ supplies, trying to find some time to work on a project that I just know will be super cute if I can ever get it done. Hopefully, I can find some time this weekend.

In the meantime, here is what I’ve completed so far (not much!), and if you’re interested in a project like this, even if it’s just to look at the inspiring work of others, be sure to check out those influencers I mentioned above, and tell me what you think in the comments below.

Heard it on the Podcast - October 26, 2022

 

Did you miss a link we mentioned on the podcast? Here's a quick post we'll do every Wednesday to share any links or information from the podcast. We'll also keep a running post on the "Links from the Podcast" tab so you can refer back to any previous episode. Here's the links for this week:

26-OCT-2022

S2E44: Halloween Traditions

• NextDoor Halloween Candy Map: Go to Nextdoor.com and click "Discover" then "Treat" button
• Cindy's Crafty Neighbor Halloween Costumes Blog: See it Here 
• Halloween Shaking Ghost Decoration: On YouTube
• Jell-o popcorn balls: Recipe

*The name of the Mel Brooks Frankenstein movie with Gene Wilder was actually "Young Frankenstein". 

*Oh, and if you find one of those Halloween Shaking Ghosts for sale somewhere, be sure to let Cindy know! 🤣

  

Halloween Traditions

Hey everyone! It’s my favorite time of year! Spooky Season! This week on the podcast we are talking about Halloween traditions and the things we like to do every year on Halloween. I am in a transitional place in my life, but I want to talk about some of the new traditions I have started over the past few years as well as some of the traditions that I have kept from my childhood.

Pumpkin Carvings by Jason and I

Halloween Decorations

Checking out the decorations at Michael's

I know a lot of people like to decorate for Halloween, and I am no exception. It excites me when the first Halloween decorations hit the shelf at the end of July/beginning of August. I typically like to hit up the décor sections early in the season and I like to hit them up again the day after Halloween. This, of course, was a tradition that I shared with my mom in the past. She always liked to prepare for the coming holidays early. I, however, keep my house decorated in a spooky aesthetic all year round. So, I keep two types of Halloween decorations: the ones I only pull out in October, such as fake cobwebs and spooky lights, and the ones I keep up all year, like my collection of gothic literature decorations.

31 Nights of Horror

Every October, like many horror fans, I TRY to achieve the near impossible (for someone with very little time), and that is to watch 31 horror or spooky movies in October. There really are no rules to this challenge other than you have to watch 31 horror (or, spooky if you don’t like horror) movies in October. Some bloggers even go so far as to create a daily theme for this challenge. Like this one from Horror Hound.

Every year, I fail miserably at this due to poor planning and not taking this challenge as seriously as other people do. I have only made it through ten movies this year. Aside from that, I like to go to the movies and watch at least one horror movie at the movies, and I have stuck to this tradition every year including in 2020 when most movie theaters were shut down and movies were going direct to streaming. This year, I saw Barbarian in the theater. The movie is about a woman, Tess, who books a remote home in Detroit to stay at while she attends a job interview only to find that it was double booked by an awkwardly creepy man named Keith. Tess ultimately decides to share the booking with Keith because the weather was horrible and there were no available hotels in the area.

Local Fall/Halloween Festivals

Pumpkin Nights with Jason

This is a new tradition that Jason and I started last year and continued this year during October. Last year, we went to Frights’n Lights in Frisco, which is a fall festival held every weekend in October that displays hundreds of horror icon lanterns and movie character carved pumpkins. The festival also boasts the largest trick-or-treat trail in Texas. This year, we decided to take a similar route and attend Pumpkin Nights in Arlington. Pumpkin Nights is a fall festival held every weekend in October that displays a trail of events and photo opportunities made almost completely out of pumpkin lanterns. The event also hosts a variety of activities such as shopping, a food truck park, and a playground for kids and adults.

Matching Pajamas

New PJs with Christen

This is also a new tradition that Christen and I mentioned on the podcast. Last year, I attended a slumber party that was thrown for Reyna at the beginning of October 2021 and I decided to stay the night to watch horror movies. Christen, the girls, and I went on a late-night run to Walmart for snacks and ended up in the pajama section. We bought matching nightshirts and wore them while we watched horror movies all night. We had so much fun shopping together, we decided we needed to do it again in the future. A couple of weeks ago, Reyna had her October slumber party and we ended up at Walmart in the pajama section again. We bought another set of matching nightshirts and ended the night watching horror movies, thus adding a new Halloween tradition.

Whether it is a new tradition or an old tradition, Halloween will always be my favorite holiday. I want to hear from our readers. Do you have any fun Halloween traditions? How long have you kept these traditions? Are there any new things you’d like to try this year? Please comment below.

A Dragon made of Pumpkins at Pumpkin Nights

Secret Santa Stocking Stuffers

Hey, it’s Cindy again, and I’m here to wrap up our talk about holiday traditions. I think we’ve already established that I like Christmas...a lot. I love giving gifts, something I got from my Dad, who was always giving surprise gifts to my mom. I think he really loved the part of Santa --  those secret gifts stuffed into stockings and piled up under the tree to be discovered on Christmas morning. It’s one of the reasons he was still leaving things for my sister and me long after we were grown and had children of our own. 

One of the things I loved was that there was usually a Santa gift for my mom, too. It wasn’t necessarily something big, just a token of his affection stuffed in her stocking or stacked neatly where she’d be sure to find it. I carried on that tradition with my own family, filling their stockings every year, even after the kids were grown and there was no reason to be secretive about any of it. But one thing always bothered me -- I loved the giving, but I missed being surprised. 

A few years ago, at a board meeting with my Aggie Moms group (that’s a whole podcast of its own!), the president asked us to share a fun Christmas tradition. So as we went around the table, one of the other moms told us how her family had an unusual gift-giving routine. Someone in the family would pick a store and everyone in the family had to buy a gift from that store. The store changed every year, and sometimes it could be a real challenge because it might be a unique specialty store, or even a gas station!

This sounded like great fun, and wound up being the perfect solution to my stocking surprise dilemma. I told my family about my idea, and we all agreed to give it a try. For that first year, we agreed to Dollar Tree as our store, and the challenge was for everyone in the family to buy one gift for each person in the family (we didn’t have any kids then). There was no price limit because...well, it was Dollar Tree. On Christmas Eve, we all stuffed each other’s stockings before we went to bed, and then we sat around the breakfast table the next morning, exploring what we got. We had a lot of great laughs and wound up with some fun little goodies that we might never have bought for each other or ourselves. After that, it was a tradition.

Over the years, we’ve shopped at Always 99¢, Daiso, Five Below, Dollar Tree (again), and others. Sometimes it’s easy to find gifts, and sometimes it’s a real challenge, but it’s always fun, and everyone looks forward to both giving and receiving the fun little trinkets we find. Notably, it never fails that someone buys me something with a llama on it, and I always find something for one of the girls that has a mermaid. Now if only I can remember what store we picked for this year….

 

Traditions: Cookies and a Smile

When I think of traditions I think of consistency. I think of something that you can rely on every year that does not change. As I’ve talked about before in an earlier blog, I am still exploring holiday traditions as a newly solitary orphan (meaning I live alone) and I spend the holidays in different places exploring what I want to do in my life. Before all of that, my family life was pretty traditional as I’ve stated before. One tradition that has been passed down generations in my family is holiday baking.

I love to bake. I started baking with my grandma when I was a little kid, and then with my mom as I got older. Every holiday, especially Christmas, my mom and I had a cookie day in the kitchen. We made other items such as candy and pies, but cookies were our big thing. My mom had a list of extended family and friends that we would bake for. The list included her best friends, coworkers, and distant cousins. We would bake shortbread, dip Oreos in chocolate, make caramel corn, and yogurt-covered pretzels. We then filled tin after tin and wrapped/labeled them. That weekend (usually the weekend before Christmas), we would have a “Santa day” as my mom would call it, and we would fill our car full of baked goods and drive around town and drop them off. 

My favorite person to visit was my mom’s old boss and his wife, Jack, and Liz. Their house was a magical, enchanted house full of musical instruments and music boxes because Liz was a former music teacher. Jack was a former owner of a restaurant and my mom was his manager when I was really little. My mom and Jack would talk and I would turn on every one of Liz’s music boxes while Liz played me songs on the piano. We did this every year until Jack passed away when I was in middle school and Liz went to live with their son out of state. 

Over the years, as life gets busy, my mom started a new career and slowed down on holiday baking. However, in high school, I picked it up when my grandma taught me how to make cake cookies. Cake cookies are not traditional cookies. They are done by using cake mix instead of cookie batter, oil, and eggs. When they are cooked, they have a fluffy, cake-like consistency that is appealing. Smaller than a muffin top but larger than a traditional cookie. My grandmother traditionally used the strawberry batter to make strawberry cookies because those were her favorite.

As I grew older, I began to experiment with different combinations of cake batter, toppings, and colors such as lemon cake with vanilla chips and red velvet cake and sprinkles. For events and holidays, I typically like to use this method to make cookies in bulk because I can knock out 200-300 cookies in a weekend and begin to package them up to distribute. It is a process that I have been doing for years. I make a lot of different flavor combinations and distribute them between different containers of various different sizes. Who do I give these cookies to? Everyone, of course!

Since I am a teacher, I make a small container for each of my bosses and coworkers. I make a large container for my classes (one cookie per student). Then, I make medium containers for my friends and extended family that I don’t individually buy gifts for. When it’s all said and done, I typically make around 300 cake cookies every Christmas for friends and family.

Why cake cookies and not more traditional cookies? They are a great time saver when it comes to making cookies because it typically only takes eight minutes to make a batch. Also, they are not cookies that you can typically go to a store and buy unless you know a baker that makes cake cookies. Since I have been making these for years, my friends, family, and coworkers expect me to bring them a container of cookies or bring them to family dinners. If I don’t bring them, I get asked, “where are the cookies?”

The recipe is simple enough to make:

Print Recipe Here:

*I typically don’t measure add-ins. I just put what I think looks good but this is for those that need a measurement.

My Favorite flavor combinations (they are endless):

• Red Velvet + vanilla chips
• Red Velvet + chocolate chips
• Lemon + vanilla chips
• Strawberry + sprinkles
• Strawberry + vanilla chips
• Classic butter + peanut butter
• Classic butter + butterscotch chips
• Fudge + sprinkles
• Fudge + chocolate chips
• German Chocolate + German Chocolate Frosting

This past Thanksgiving, I whipped up a batch to take to dinner with my boyfriend’s family and they were well received. Jason told me when I brought them over that he didn’t think he’d ever had a cake mix cookie. So, I was able to share my family tradition with his family this year and introduce them to the love of cake mix cookies. That is what holiday traditions are all about.

Jason and I at Thanksgiving