A Howl For Ideas

The calendar says that today is the first day of Rocktober! Halloween has slowly become one of my favorite holidays. I've always enjoyed a good scare and love horror flicks.

I remember watching Elvira host us through some very poorly produced ones.

I also enjoyed the Twilight Zone marathons around Halloween. It is a Halloween tradition of mine to watch my all-time favorite horror movie, appropriately titled "Halloween", every Rocktober. I'm pretty sure that movie was on poor people T.V. every Halloween when I was a young lad.

The movies are great and all, but I don't think I have really come to enjoy Halloween until fairly recently. I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps it is because I now have kids who like to go get candy(Things always seem better when you get to experience them through your kids). Maybe it is because of all the candy I get to sneak from the kids' stashes. Or it could be that I get to be crafty. Whatever the reason, I think Halloween will keep getting better for me as the years go by.

Now, to the true reason for this post. I need help with some ideas. I recall asking for ideas for a past project and receiving a couple, so I figured more people may step up this time. Here are the ideas I am looking for:

• I help out with the young men at church and we are in charge of a spook alley at our Halloween party. We received numerous compliments for the one we did last year, and everyone is expecting this year's to top it. I could use any ideas for the spook alley. The challenge is that we have to make it scary enough for adults to enjoy, but not too scary for the kids. One of the parts I liked from last year's was a room with a T.V. with a scene from "The Ring" on loop. In the next room we had one of the young women climbing out of a makeshift well. It was pretty cool.

• Next, I could use creative costume ideas. My parents pretty much hooked me up with a good costume idea, but I can still be persuaded to try something else. Plus, Sara still needs a costume.

• Probably my favorite part of Halloween is carving Jack-O-Lanterns. I will probably do one of each of the kids and then one with each of the kids. Along with that I will probably do a few others. I welcome ideas on what to carve. I will take this time to recommend a great pumpkin carving website, The Pumpkin Wizard. Here are some Jack-O-Lanterns of past years to give you an idea of what I may be able to do:

Thank you in advance for any suggestions, and here's hoping that you have a Rocktober to remember!