2010--I went to my family ward, wearing my jack-o-lantern-covered tie, but skipped the singles ward because my cousin Quin was being ordained a priest. We were waiting at their church near the bishop's (?) office to go in. My ex-uncle Wayne was there. He was shocked to see me because he hadn't seen me since I'd been home from my mission. He asked my mom about her grandsons. When we went into the office, someone in the ward (the bishop?) was making a silly comment about Joey being there. My grandpa and I were among the ones to stand in the circle for the ordination. Afterward, Wayne took Quin to his car to give him a framed quote or something by President Monson. Then we went to my aunt's house for lasagna. When we were there, my grandma remarked that Wayne had been friendly to my mom. She said that he shook my grandpa's hand, but completely ignored her. My grandpa said, "That's because you're the Wicked Witch of the West," but he said it affectionately, as though he were proud of her. If I recall correctly, there were lots of paper cups, and I wanted a Halloween one. I was sitting at the table with Jesse, Lisa, and Peter. The conversation turned to Chancey. Jesse told me how much he liked a comment I had made on Chancey's Facebook status that said, "If I'm not mistaken, and I'm usually not, energy drinks are worse for you than soda." He liked that I said, "and I'm usually not." I explained that I was inspired by a quote from The Nativity Story where one of the wisemen says, "If I am right, and I usually am..." We talked about his money, and Lisa said he should save his money to buy a baby. Peter and Jesse remarked about that being a strange thing to say, but she explained that she meant he should save up money for the baby his girlfriend was having. I remember at one point Joey said something about working and making money, and after he left, Jesse or Peter said something about how much he loves money. Chancey came home and put an enormous portion of lasagna on his plate. Quin was unhappy about that and Sue said if he put that much on the plate, he needed to actually eat it. Chancey was having difficulties talking to his girlfriend Nicole, and said to me something about that is why you don't have kids. Quin said, "No, that's why you wait until you're married." Chancey said something about how no, it should be never. My niece Allie went across the street to play with friends. Quin was watching The Nightmare Before Christmas. As it ended and Jack and Sally embraced and Zero flew up into the sky, my mom said "Aww" in the way she usually says "And they lived happily ever after." Then Quin was channel surfing and I noticed that the guide on the TV showed one channel showing episodes of The Addams Family, but then I realized that I don't watch TV on Sundays. One of the things he stopped on was a Halloween episode of iCarly, which I thought was a strange show for a sixteen-year-old, but what do I know? When we left, Allie was saying Chancey had been mad because his uncle wouldn't talk to him. We realized that he had said "Nicole" but she heard "my uncle." She told us she liked a girlfriend he had had who went on a mission. That evening I watched The Munsters' Revenge (I make exceptions to my no-TV-on-Sunday rule for my holiday shows) but I didn't pay much attention because I was filling out a new planner. When I decorated the page for Thanksgiving, I didn't have a brown colored pencil, so I used red, orange, and yellow. I colored the time blocks lightly with those colors, and thought it made it look like Pez.
2009--I got up and did the usual studying and such, but as was somewhat typical, my companion, Elder Tamblyn, slept in sick. Twice in the day he got up and dressed and when we were about to say the prayer to leave, he announced that he was feeling sick again. So what did I do all day while he slept? All I remember was carving the pumpkin I hadn't been able to carve on P-day. This is what it looked like:
I put some salt on the seeds and baked them in the oven. In the evening, some members (the Watkins?) dropped off chicken noodle soup for us for dinner. Then we went to the stake center where there was a trunk or treat going on. There was one guy there who was "dressed" as a brown recluse--paper limbs sticking off his side and a paper violin shape on his back. But we weren't there for the trunk or treat; we were there to teach Mallary, an investigator, with her friend Mike from Boise. We couldn't get our key to work, so we taught her on the lawn. Then she went home to get ready for the Lewis-Clark singles branch Halloween party, which we were also attending. We waited until someone with a working key showed up--I believe that was Cecilia Safsten, the activities committee chair. We helped her blow up orange and black balloons, which they just threw all over the gym floor. Then the members of the branch showed up. Sena Busch (or is it Bush?) was dressed as a Ravenclaw (Elder Tamblyn didn't know what that was!), Mallary and Meagan (Clark?) were pirates, and Brent Howie was a gangster with multiple layers of sagging pants. One of the track kids had a kid's alligator costume on with spandex underneath. There was a table of snacks, such as cheese and crackers and apple cider. There was a pumpkin carving contest. I ended up working with Meagan and Whitney (Whitney is a boy, by the way). I told them about my missionary pumpkin. So they decided to go with that. But they didn't actually carve it; they just scraped off the outer part to make a picture. They made it a headshot of a missionary, instead of the simple iconic one I did. It was actually pretty ugly. Someone turned on a playlist of which the first song was "This Is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I realized that it would be just a month before I could watch (and listen to) that. President Landeen asked us elders to pick the best costumes. I liked Brent, Meagan, and Sena, and he seemed surprised we didn't pick the alligator. It was approaching our curfew time, and Elder Tamblyn asked if we could stay later. I said I didn't think that would be prudent. We went home, and we were setting our clocks back. Then I realized that he asked to do that because setting the time back made it like it was an hour earlier. I still thought it was wise for us to have left on time.
2008--On this Friday morning, Elder Love and I went to the house of Christol, an investigator, where her foul-mouthed three-year-old Edward was dressed up as a dinosaur. I wanted to take a picture, but then I realized my camera was on video--so I got a short video of him instead. (Unfortunately I don't have this. I sent memory cards home several times on my mission. This is the only one that is still lost.) [We were walking home and a woman in a nun's habit drove by. I can't remember if I saw her or if Elder Love just told me he did. He waved at her, and started laughing hysterically because he said she waved back and then got a really weird look on her face. We wondered if she was a real nun or in a costume.] During our lunch break I wanted to buy a pumpkin to carve that evening, so we went to Ritzville's Harvest Foods grocery store, but they didn't have any pumpkins! We left to pick up the Airway Heights elders for our district meeting that night. [On the way out of Ritzville we saw another nun-clad woman, and we figured it was unlikely for us to see two nuns in one day, so at least one of them had to have been a costume, and probably both of them were.] We stopped in the small town of Harrington and tracted a street. We met a female pastor (her husband was a pastor too), had an awkward approach with a man outside, and met the principal of the local high school who said she was impressed with the Mormon kids at the school. We also met a woman we had met a few weeks earlier at a members' home in Davenport, the Jeskes. She remembered that since I was new in the area, Sister Jeske hadn't known my name. I think the last house on the street had a wolf blanket in the window, or something like that. I wanted to stop at the Walmart in Airway Heights to get a pumpkin (since I couldn't get one in Ritzville), but when we picked up the other elders, the member they lived with, Sister Drees, offered us a pumpkin. I felt guilty for taking it, but it meant we didn't need to stop at a store. Then we drove to Cheney. I remember the Children's Songbook CD being on and Elder Colton said, "What is this!?" and then he said that he liked the song "Teacher, Do You Love Me" with the little kid who couldn't say his r's. We wanted to go to one restaurant but ended up going to a Mexican restaurant with the rest of the district. At dinner I switched Elder Love's and my nametag since we were wearing the same tie so that we could be each other for Halloween. We went to the Cheney institute for our evening district meeting. [The closing hymn was #121, "I'm a Pilgrim, I'm a Stranger." Sister Lyman said she didn't really know it, and she didn't play it very well, so we only sang the first verse. Too bad that only the third verse of that song actually has any uplifting message.] After the meeting, everyone just played games. I was disappointed because that was what we did every P-day--they were doing nothing Halloween related! So I went into the kitchen and pulled out a baking sheet and carved my pumpkin. It was a very simple design--I remember one of the singles ward members from Cheney (Tyler Marsden?) commenting on that and I was slightly offended. I took pictures (again on the missing memory card) and then wanted to see it lit up. I didn't have a candle, so I thought I'd try the cell phone. I went into the bathroom, put the pumpkin on the floor, turned the lights off, put the cell phone in, and took pictures. At first I had the flash on, so that defeated the purpose. When I turned it off, the phone was just too dim for my camera to really pick up. We took the Airway Heights elders back to their house, but it was late, and we knew we'd go over miles if we went back to Ritzville, so we decided to stay the night there. [On our way back, Elder Colton talked about how hard it was to sing that "pilgrim song," and asked who picked it. I didn't say anything, but he figured out it was me.] Sister Drees had a box of candy by the door--so we all helped ourselves.
2007--I was wearing my orange "Happy Halloween" Peanuts shirt, and I decided to finish up the Halloween ceramic I had started in 2001. I ended up splattering a little bit of black paint on my shirt. Since it was my favorite shirt, I soaked it in a sink to try to remove the paint. (The paint is still on the shirt to this day.) So instead of my Halloween shirt, I wore my vampire costume. I did finish the ceramic, and put it up on a bookshelf downstairs. I had to pick up my niece from her preschool, so I walked up there in my costume. When the kids got out, one girl shouted out "A vampire!" but Allie ran up to me and hugged me and kept saying, "It's just my uncle." Her teacher, "Miss Sue" Palmer, said, "Allie likes that vampire." We walked home, me in my vampire costume and her in her Ariel costume, and David Christensen drove by and waved to us. A little later, Susanne took pictures of us on the front step. I didn't look at the camera and looked at Allie instead. I was hoping she would get a picture of my Jack Skellington white pumpkin. That afternoon, my mom, sister, and niece went to the ward trunk or treat, but since I don't believe in those things, I stayed home. I made a caramel apple with those caramel sheets that are just meant to be molded around the apple. I think I had problems with the stick. I remember watching a group of trick-or-treaters, even though it was still bright outside, since it was the first year with the later Daylight Savings Time change. Our home teacher Brother Ulmer brought me something to read in preparation for my mission. I went trick-or-treating with Allie and Susanne. One of our stops was Miss Sue's, and she told her husband Roy that I had shown up dressed like that in front of all the preschool kids. He asked me if the suit was one I was going to take on my mission. I told him no. Our lost stop was a house we didn't know, but we liked the candy corn light on their porch. Nan didn't realize how late it was. She took Allie home and I watched The Munsters' Revenge. It seems that we also had pumpkin-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's.
2006--I remember sitting in my calculus lab and my friend Latecia Pope was dressed up as a manga or anime character. I remember wishing I had worn my vampire costume instead of my "Happy Halloween" Peanuts shirt. After school we went to Chuck-a-Rama to comfort my dad. Many of the employees had costumes of sorts; I think Angie Vilchez was Luigi. After dinner we drove by a house that had Jack Skellington and Sally in inflatable form. Then I went trick-or-treating with Allie and Susanne. This is what we looked like:
Susanne had to wear those goggles because she had just had Lasik done and she had to wear them when she went outside. But they kept fogging up on her. I remember stopping at her friend Shan's house, then the Palmers', then the Millards'. Sister Millard remarked how sad it was that she heard that my dad's mom died. Nan told her it was really sad because it was the only house my dad ever grew up in. I'm sure I would have watched The Munsters' Revenge but I don't know when.
2005--I had the day off from school. I wore my orange glasses with the faulty prescription so my vision was a little skewed all day. I remember riding in the Suburban which Nan was driving and being by the train tracks and it beeping at us because it needed gas. We were going to clear out our family's storage unit. My parents told me they were getting rid of my beautiful heirloom flocked Christmas tree. If I got rid of it, I could have my sister's smaller tree and keep it after my mission, but if I kept the flocked tree, they would get rid of it when I went on my mission and then I would have no tree at all. I remember sitting in the Suburban at DI when they unloaded the tree and I was really sad and my mom started crying because she could tell I was so sad. It sounds so silly now but I was really, really sad. I'm still sad about it. Anyway, I was a little shocked when I found out that night that they weren't taking two-year-old Allie trick-or-treating. So I decided to take her myself. I put on my ghost sheet and carried her in her witch costume. I'd walked a small distance before I realized her hat fell off. So I retraced my steps and found it and decided that I couldn't see well enough in my costume, even though it had eyeholes, so I'd only wear it at doorsteps. We stopped at the Joneses', the Trosts', the Christensens', and the Clarks'. I was a little disappointed that so many people knew who I was under the sheet.
2004--This was a Sunday. I remember that evening the Craigs dropped off some goodies because our family had just switched to a new phone company, one they'd introduced us to. My parents were watching Pollyanna but I didn't care to watch it. I remember being down in the family room to turn the Halloween lights on. Then there was a fireside at the Morleys' house with the stake patriarch who had given me my blessing about two months previously. When I got to the house I was impressed with the jack-o-lantern that was vomiting its own innards. That's a bit cliché now, but it was the first time I'd ever seen it. The patriarch asked for everyone who'd received a blessing from him to say their name. I was first, and at first I just said, "Mark," then clarified "Mark Melville." I was expecting him to remember me since it was recent, but he didn't. So then I felt dumb that I had initially just given a first name when everyone else, such as David Oder, gave their full name the first time. Afterward we went to the kitchen where there were Halloween sugar cookies. I remember talking with Chalei Simmons about how excited I was that the next day was November, my second-favorite month, because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. She seemed surprised that Christmas wasn't my favorite, but I explained that part of why Thanksgiving is so great is because when it's over it starts Christmastime.
2003--There was snow on the ground this Halloween. It was a Friday with no school. I think I watched the audio commentary on The Nightmare Before Christmas in the morning and then I was picked up by Laura Ulmer to go practice for the play I was in, Evil Doings at Queen Toots' Tomb. After practice I remember sitting in the commons area looking at the grey sky. We had a big bowl of Tootsie Roll products to give to trick-or-treaters. We had a pipe leak that evening and damaged some old paper Halloween decorations that were in a tote in the laundry room. I remember our home teacher Brother Taylor stopping by on that snowy evening to help. I watched Frankenweenie. Then I donned my Charlie Brown ghost costume (you know--with all the holes) and stopped at the Andersons'.
2002--I had elected not to officially celebrate Halloween this year, since I would not be in the country on Halloween night. I remember getting ready for my grandparents to take us to the airport. I had already packed my spray deodorant, so I had to put on the stick deodorant that was in the drawer, which turned out to be bad later. I was wearing my orange "Happy Halloween" Peanuts shirt. I remember at the airport, they had little organ sounds playing and I thought it was for Halloween. My mom had a bag full of tons of bottles of hand sanitizer and there was a problem with it looking suspicious. When we were sitting in the Salt Lake airport to wait for our plane, there were missionaries sitting near a nearby terminal. I remember watching a girl walk through the airport in a Jeannie (from I Dream of Jeannie) costume. As we were flying in to our layover in San Francisco, I could see the Golden Gate Bridge. I remember looking at a small gift shop in the airport and they had a toy model of the airport. Before boarding our flight, we were sitting, talking with the other Davis County couple who were picking up their son from the same mission. They told us they had too many kids to take them along. They talked about how one of their sons had shaggy hair, and his part in the primary program talked about being groomed properly, and he thought it was hilarious. My mom brought up that I had mentioned wanting to dye my hair red. Where we were sitting was near a staircase (or escalator?) that went down to our gate. Shortly before boarding I went down there by myself and got really nervous thinking about the long flight to Taiwan ahead of us, so I came back up. Then we all went down to the gate. There was a scrolling marquee that talked about something being "DURY FREE" instead of "duty free." Then we boarded. There were lots of Taiwanese people. I remember one older woman looked very chimp-like, and I thought that was proof of evolution. They had lots of movies to choose from. Ice Age was one of them, but I opted not to watch it because I had missed the beginning. I watched the map that showed our progress and how long we still had to go. I had to keep the window closed because the sun was reflecting off the ocean. At some point in our flight we flew over the International Dateline so it was no longer October 31.
2001--I remember very little about this Halloween, except for staying home finishing up my apron for my TLC class. It was my first year not trick-or-treating. At some point after 9:00 a trick-or-treater came to the door. My mom told me he looked like he was in sixth grade and I remarked that that was pretty late for someone his age.
2000--There was a lot I remember having to do with the sixth-grade Halloween talent show (such as one of the teachers insisting I wear a mask in the picture :( ), but I can't remember what (or if it) took place on Halloween itself, so I'll just forget it. I was Charlie Brown for Halloween--a Charlie Brown shirt, black pants, a baseball cap, and a plush dog. After dropping me off from school, Laura Ulmer took my picture. That night I went trick-or-treating with my friend David Christensen, who was wearing a white robe/toga and a leaf crown on his head. When we stopped at my own house, my mom called him "Caesar Augustus" but he corrected her, "Julius Caesar."
1999--Thankfully this Halloween was a Sunday, so I don't have to write about my ridiculous costume this year. I remember my dad waking me up telling me I had to get dressed for my brother's ordination that morning. I didn't realize I had to get dressed up for it. My aunt and Chancey and Jesse had come for it. After the ordination, my aunt remarked how my brother would be able to say he got the Melchizedek Priesthood on Halloween. I remember the Thompsons eating some of the leftover trick-or-treat candy my mom gave them. I went to take a shower. Outside my bedroom door I had a Halloween doorbell that said, "Happy Halloween, Hahahahahaha!" and I remember being in the bathroom and hearing it go off. I was even more OCD then than I am now and I was getting really mad because they knew I wasn't in my room. I remember yelling at Jesse and Chancey from the bathroom to stop and Jesse was blaming it on Chancey, but his laughter gave away the fact that he was lying--but I still believed him at first.
1998--I was Wallace this year from Wallace and Gromit--bald head, green vest, red tie, and plush dog. I went trick-or-treating with David Christensen and his family, and I remember feeling a little sad I wasn't trick-or-treating with my mom. (I don't think she was sad.) There was a guy on Constitution Way who asked what I was supposed to be. Wayne Christensen took us up to Eaglewood to trick-or-treat. We were driving through a P.U.D. and he told us what it was, and I said we should just call it a pud.
1997--There was a new addition to the sixth-grade Halloween talent show this year, a song about a monster in the tub. Afterward we had library time and Jaydon Bean was quoting "There's something yucky in the tub, mommy," because we all thought it was so funny. I was a jack-o-lantern for Halloween. Morgan Smith was a swamp monster. That night I was watching my weekly TGIF which had Halloween-themed episodes that night. The only one I remember was You Wish. One of the props was a plastic eerie scythe, which I was excited about because I had seen several of them at school that day. The episode involved monsters coming to life, and the mummy was defeated by the genie putting a loose end of his wrapping in the garbage disposal and turning it on. He disappeared--apparently there was nothing but wrapping.
1996--I was the Grim Reaper for Halloween. At the costume parade, I remember seeing three people dressed as Santa Claus, one of whom had brought his dog dressed as a reindeer. There was another Grim-reaper, who said, "Beware the scythe!"
1995--I was a mummy for Halloween, so for all of the costume parade, I held my arms out in front of me. I remember at one point we were walking outside the school where there were no people, and I was relieved to be able to put my arms down. That night we were carving our jack-o-lantern. I had no problem at that time with holidays overlapping, so I said I wanted a turkey pumpkin. So our jack-o-lantern was a turkey.
1994--I think the beard to my costume didn't work quite right, so I was a beardless Santa Claus. I showed up to David Christensen's house before school, and his mom had to stop at Winegar's to pick some stuff up. I remember sitting in the parking lot saying it was Smith's. Chantelle corrected me that it was Winegar's. I knew it was Winegar's, but I liked to joke it was Smith's because they had very similar logos--red ovals with white writing. In kindergarten that day we made brown pom-pom spiders (I actually still have mine). We saw the sixth-grade talent show and I thought "Monster Mash" was like the greatest song ever. I went home and it seems like they were rearranging the furniture downstairs. I decided to play the lava game on the furniture, playing with my pom-pom spider and telling my mom all about how much I liked "Monster Mash." [We went to my grandparents' that night. I only remember this because I remember that on the way back, a house in their neighborhood had a jack-o-lantern lampshade in the window. Since that time, I've wanted a jack-o-lantern lampshade.] I have another Halloween-time memory about sitting in a hot car and fanning myself with a paper skull and discovering that fanning yourself doesn't work when you're only surrounded by hot air--this seems like it took place on Halloween, but the details I remember don't all add up.
Earlier Halloweens--The only earlier Halloween memory I can really recall is wearing a ladybug costume and trick-or-treating with my mom. An older kid saw me and said, "A little ladybug!" I talked to my mom about it because I thought he was making fun of me, but she said he wasn't making fun of me. But if this was 1993, then it probably wasn't actually Halloween, because Halloween would have been a Sunday that year.
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