Since it's that time of year once again (AT LAST!), I was just wondering if anybody would be interested in sharing any of their favorite mummeries (memories) from past halloweens. 

One of my favorite memories is the year I had my daughter lie on the floor, traced around her "bones" and made a poster board skeleton out of her.  I put all of the "bones" in a brown grocery bag, folded the bag down so the bones stuck out of it, wrote "Angie's Bones" on it and sat it on the fireplace. That was a good twenty years ago (she was no more than 12, maybe 10, at the time) and she still talks about that every halloween.  It's a good mummery for me cause it made something for her that she never forgot.  We used that little prop for several years til the posterboard started falling apart and I finally tossed it...I do wish I had it now cause not sure I can remember exactly how I did that or I'd do another one of her for NOW.  lol  She laughs every year about that and how I wouldn't tell her what I was doing or why while I was tracing around her so she had no idea til she came home from school one day and found it. 

Aw, that's just adorable in a really creepy sort of way.

My favorite mummery (love that word, btw) would have to be Halloween two years ago. We did a giant maze of a haunted house that got more than one adult lost, and I was chosen to play a Shiro Lolita.

Basically, I was decked out in an all white Victorian style dress, with my skin all powdered up to be super pale. I appeared out of nowhere at random intervals and was basically the ghost pointing to the exit. Of course, half the people went the other way immediately under the assumption I was pointing them into certain doom, but that's totally reasonably because we had, like, five Kuro Lolita whose job it was to run around and point everyone towards the opposite of the exit/haunters hidden in waiting.

There was one little girl, about kindergarten age (I think?) who got seperated from her parents. She was terrified. I mean, really, really freaked out. So instead of just pointing to the exit, I let her hide under a table with me until her parents eventually came by. She was entralled with me, and of course I couldn't speak because I was gagged with white ribbons, so she just sat there giving me a list of theories on what I was. She guessed fairy, angel, fairy angel, princess, angel princess, elf and ghost, in that order. The squealing she made when I nodded on that last one was adorable.

Then when her parents came by and I did my whole 'pop out, point to the hallway that leads to the exit' routine, she was all "go that way! go that way! She's a nice ghost! REALLY nice!" Then she ran off that direction at warp speed.  It. Was. Adorable.

Wow, that post got long. DX Whoops.

Hat, that was a GREAT story!

Ahhh, Halloween mummeries. I remember the first "haunt" I ever experienced. It was at my elementary school, I was no more than 10 years old. Talk about CHEESY! Just a bunch of those big, springy tunnels kids crawl through with plastic spiders sprinkled around inside, and a few grease-painted ghouls/teachers, but ... I was hooked. Just seeing the classroom transformed by a simple change of lighting and a little cheap ambience, and I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up.
*sigh* Great thread!

Aren't mummeries wonderful.  My favorite was when I was 10.  Every year the shopping center near our home had a Halloween contest.  This one year, my dad dressed my sister, who was 5 as Eddie, I was Lilly and dad was Herman.  We won fist place in the group gatagorie.  But it wasn't winning it was doing this with our dad.  My father passed away over 29 years ago.  And we have no pictures of that day.  But both my sister and I have the mummeries.

Dristin, too bad there were no pictures taken that day but that image will live in your mummery forever and I'm sure grows sweeter as the years pass by.

BTM, I remember those "haunted houses" at school!  I had such fun with them too!  When I was in high school I got to help set them up and had even more fun with that.

HatofGreed, you handled that scared little girl so well.  I bet that'll be one of HER favorite halloween mummeries too.

I have a lot of favorite halloween mummeries.  One year on Halloween Day I was called at 8:30 a.m. and asked to be at our local Girl Scout camp by 9 a.m. - dressed as a witch.  Tall order since I was 45 minutes away at the time.  lol  Anyways, I quickly found the witch costume and got made up and got a lot of weird looks as I drove over there.  I took groups of local second graders through the woods, telling them a "creepy" story as I went.  It was a great day of fun for me to be dressed up as a witch going through the woods with a bunch of kids following me with their eyes getting bigger and bigger as we went.    I was glad the person who was scheduled to do it wasn't able to make it or I would never have had the fun of leading these kids through the woods to their next "creepy stop." 

Back when I was a teen, we'd go to all the haunted houses in the area, inside & ousite, no matter how cheesy. One in particular had this kitchen scene and when this werewolf popped his head out of a kitchen cabinet, my best bud (also named Jody) slammed the door back and the next thing we hear is "Oh my nose!!!" After that, I couldn't stop giggling.

TOTing with Mickey Mouse last year. It was my little Spookster's first trip and it was truly magical!

A couple years ago, I went to a local hh with my oldest son, there was a room with a pit in the center. I walked in and something blew in my ear. It was this naked pigmy thing. I stood there, srated at it and said "WTH was that?" The poor ghoul sneaking up to scare me from behind doubled over laughing and walked away shaking his head. I still can't get over all the naked pigmies blowing all over the place. Sorry... that is so far from scary! On a plus side for this hh, they had this COOL as hell creature that was over top of you and when you entered the hallway, it linged down growling, glowing and blowing smoke. I was in awe. The stinkin' giude wouldn't let me sit and stare! Big meanie!

Most of my past halloweens have all been something to remember as an adult but the one that will always stick in my head was the one when the family that raised me started trying to get me to "grow up" and tryied to take Halloween away from me. My reply was to get dressed up that night and go out ToTing and then come home and say and I quote " IF you intend for me to 'grow up' and stop believing in things that are not real you have to define what is REAL to me. YOU believe in God and yet you have nothing to show me that belongs to him personally nore do you have an address I can go check him out at. How real is that? When you find a way to show me what is real then and only then will I stop believing in things you call 'unreal'". From that day on they never questioned my desire to celebrate anything in my own way as they could not find a way to show me what they thought was real. I was 12 at that time.

My first really formative mummery were the halloweens from about age 6-10.  My grandparents had a neighbor that went "all out" back in the day.  He had a very look-a-like dummy that he would dress in pose in various states of torture.  It was meant to be scary but I looked forward to finding out what/where it was placed for the big night.  He would hang it from a tree, leave it in the door way with a butcher knife in the chest.  One year he even had a "crime sceen" setup complete with caution tape, chalk outline, the works.  He and his wife always dressed up and were just big kids themselves and looked forward to the season each year.

I consider this guy, Mr. Marvin, as my inspiration to doing the yard haunt and scaring the TOTS.  Unfortunately he passed away before I became of age to have my own haunt and invite him over.  Maybe, just maybe he visits each year ANYWAY!

I can't share the previous mummery without stating that my love of Halloween in general started with my dad.  Each year he would help me with costume ideas, flashlights, pumpkin buckets and pumpkin carving.  He was always the first one to be ready for trick or treating.  He would come home early that day, wash the four wheeler, or in later years, the tractor and hook up the trailer to take all of in the neighborhood trick or treating.  He was the one pushing us to walk one more subdivision, one more street, one more house.  He loved getting out with us and just being a big kid.  To this day, he still carts my cousins and soon, Lily, around our neighborhood and keeps encouraging them to hit that next house!

Oh and btw, he loves my haunt!!

Well, my best memory is back in '95.  Friday the 13th of that year is my lucky day.  On Sept. 25 of that year I was in a severe car accident...died in the ambulance and all that.  Ended up haveing major surgery and a pelvis broke in 3 places along with craked ribs, cuts and brusies.  Well the docs said that it would be months before I would be able to walk with out crutches or a cane.  Well along comes Oct 13 Friday,  The haunts in our area opened that weekend and all my friends were going.....so I ditched my crutches and went to the haunts.  It was 18 days after I had basicly died, and there I was screaming with all the others.  That was a great time.