At DragonWyck Manor we've been super busy getting ready for Zombie Drive. Zombie Drive was gonna be much bigger, but we couldn't find anyone to work at it. That and the rising cost and the neighbors we decided to have it at our house and just do a large yard-haunt and give out candy.

Dagon has been making zombie props and I'm working on signs and other stuff. Plus, doing a whole bunch of other stuff.  We're making everything from scratch this year instead of buying stuff to use. We did buy a few items from Dollar Tree to re-do and use with other stuff.

There aren't any photos up on the website, besides the flyer, because we haven't had it yet.
 

http://zombie.drive.angelfire.com/

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 Sunday, Dagon went and talked to one of the guys from the VFD (volunteer fire department) and set up a meeting for the spook trail.

 Monday night Dagon went to the meeting. The vfd is supposed to start working on the trail Saturday. They are gonna clean the trail up and build some buildings.

 They are building me a witches shack. We've started working on "potion bottles" and I'm gonna make a witch book and some other decorations for me to use at my scare.

 Monday, Dagon got an old chainsaw to use in the trail, from a guy he used to work for. So that's cool and saves some money.

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 The stores in my area are starting to get Halloween stuff in!

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 I listed 3 new zombie pendants in The Boneyard BOOtique today!!!

www.boneyardbootique.etsy.com

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 I got a new blog where I'm gonna post updates about Halloween, Frightmare Forest, The Boneyard BOOtique, and other creative stuff we do.

http://dragonwycknews.blogspot.com/

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 I wanted to add this to the other blog, but I couldn't find an edit button.

 Halloween in recent years is getting better around here.

 A lot of the churches/people still don't like it, but they aren't so anti-Halloween as they were in the 90's. They still do their "Safe Alternatives to Halloween" festivities. People write into the newspapers about how Halloween is "bad" and some of the letters get published. I've heard people still hand-out those anti-Halloween pamplets.

 The highshool show choir for the rural area I'm in now (for the last 10 years) put on a spook trail as a fundraiser in 2006. It was popular. Then we had Frightmare Forest last year in the town I'm in.

 I'm not sure how laurel, a metro-type area where all the problems were, is about Halloween now. It's in the same county, but about 10 miles away. There were always people who still decorated and gave out candy. Probably a lot more are doing it now. Big Lots sold out of most of their Halloween stock before Halloween last year. Wal-mart, Wal-greens, and Dollar Tree, were running low on stuff by Halloween. Much longer and more aisles of stuff, too. That's a good sign.

 We spend the smallest amount of time possible in laurel, because it's not the safest place to be especially since Hurricane Katrina. So I'm not sure what all goes on there now. We just go to the city to do shopping and leave. Since hurricane Katrina and the gas prices have gone up there are a lot of robberies. Which is sad because laurel is a smaller city.

 The hospital had some kinda Halloween festival for kids last year and the Junior College in Ellisville, about 10 miles from laurel but same county, does Halloween stuff for kids. They do it for the kids to be safe because of crime not anti-Halloween stuff. There is a spook trail in Ellisville, too. The state school puts it on as a fundraiser.

 One of the churches in SoSo, another small town in the county, in 2006 had a trick-or-treater thing where kids could dress up and get candy. So that was cool. It was a safe alternative to trick-or-treating on the roads.
 A lot of places give out candy like that so the kids don't have to walk so much to get candy in neighborhoods where only a few people are giving out candy and they are spread out.

 More people are getting into the Halloween Spirit around here.

 So that's why I said The Grinch That TRIED to Steal Halloween.

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 Halloween was once a popular holiday around Jones County (the area I'm in).

 
 Then one of the snob churches had judgement night. I don't think all churches are snobby just certain individual ones because of the people going to it. I'm Christian and I respect other people's religions.

 After that most everyone around here thought it was bad to celebrate Halloween. Some people just like ruining stuff for people, too. I was 12 or 13 when the first judgement house in the area was staged. The church had judgement house and started the thing about Halloween being bad/dangerous around here so people would pay to go through judgement house. My church paid for the youth group to go through it. It was just a spook house that told you that you were bad and you should come to their church.

 I trick or treated till I was 15.

When I was 15, we went to one street, it wasn't a well known neighborhood but it was all nice/fancy houses in a good area. We walked to a few houses on the street and got candy, but not much. Then at the last house with a porchlight you could see another house down the street, the very last house on the road,  that was all lit up. You could see pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns. My friend's mom wasn't picking us up for a while so we walked down to it. When we got there we found signs saying not to bother them. That we were going to hell for trick-or-treating, and other mean stuff. They had a bowl on a table, that was decorated for Halloween, that had pamplets telling all these reasons why you go to hell for celebrating Halloween and trick-or-treating. They did all this decorating just to do something mean to kids. Tricking them into walking up to their house to be told that they're sinners. Possibly ruining a kids Halloween and scaring them in a bad way. That was just heartless.

 I went with the same friend to take her younger brothers trick-or-treating the next year. I just went to look at costumes and decorations. I didn't actually trick-or-treat, but I got some candy anyway, because everyone thought I was dressed-up they would ask me to come get candy or had the boys bring me candy. It was just the way I dressed. Try being the only goth kid in your area, before it got trendy, it'll get you a lot of weird looks. I didn't even know what goth was, I thought it was a type of music, it's just the way I dressed.

 Now the churches have Fall Festivals. Which are cool, except when they call it a "safe alternative to Halloween".

 The area is getting better again. It took about 15 years for people to lighten up. Some are still trying to ruin it for others.

 It'd be nice if people who don't like the holiday at least looked at it this way:

 It's fun, legal, and it makes great memories for kids and their parents. Kids get to dress up and pretend, which is something most kids love to do. Lots of people get creative around Halloween.

 Plus, look at how giving people are. They spend money buying candy and treats and give them to any kid that comes to their door. Whether the costumes are expensive or cheap, homemade or store bought, actual costumes or face paint. No discrimination. That is such a cool thing.

Total strangers will help to make good memories for children on Halloween.

 Only Christmas is a more giving holiday.

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 When  I was a kid Halloween was a big deal around here.

 Even some of the churches had spook houses in the church.
Most of the churches had Halloween carnivals, too. 

 The scariest spook house I've been to was put on by a church in a house. I went in by myself (I was around 11 years old), because my mom had my brother, he wasn't 5 years old yet, and he got scared outside by a cheesie Freddy costume. I thought it wouldn't be scary, but even when they're not scary they're fun. So I went in and it was so scary. Two teenage girls had gone in when I did. They were huddled together, one was behind the other holding her shirt. I walked up close to them and they turned around and told me to hold on so I grabbed the shirt of the one in front of me. I didn't know either of them. We went through most of the house like that.

 Lots of people gave out candy and decorated. The schools had Halloween parties and let you come to school dressed-up. During October in music class we watched Halloween specials like Mrs. Cabobble's Caboose and Sleepy Hollow (Disney cartoon), and we sung Halloween songs. We did Halloween fun projects in class. That was the best time to be in school.

 The Halloween specials that came on television all rocked. They still do when I get to watch them.

 All the Halloween carnivals were so much fun. Playing Halloween themed games and winning Halloween themed treats.

 All the stuff like decorating, dressing-up, treats, Halloween specials, Halloween coloring books and games were all fun too, but I still do all of that stuff and it's still fun.

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When I was a kid I put paper decorations on the glass part of the screen door on my Grandparent's porch. Sometimes we put fake spiderweb up and carved a pumpkin. I had a Halloween display on a shelf in my bedroom most of the time all year.

For the past few years Dagon & I have decorated our porch for Halloween. We lived in a trailer to start with and we hung stuff up in the windows, but we didn't have a porch and not much of a yard (we were in a trailer park) so we just decorated inside.

When we moved in a house (we were in it for 2 years) we decorated 1 year there. We gave out candy and scared the kids and some parents with our decorating. We had people going across the street, to avoid walking past our house, and crossing back over at the next house. Even though we were giving out huge handfuls of candy/treats, lots of people wouldn't come up to the porch to get the candy/treats.

The next year we had some decoarations out, mostly some stuff in the windows and some store bought decorations on the little porch. Dagon was working moving stuff into our new store that day and I went home to watch Halloween specials on tv. Since I was their alone and had been busy I turned all the lights off and went in the bedroom on the backside of the house, to watch tv. People knocked and banged on the door all night. Even with the lights off.

The next year we moved in our house and started decorating our porch (we have a wonderful porch for decorating, it's huge, it goes all the way across the front of the house). The only problem is no one, but us, really sees it. We are the last house on a dead-end dirt road with only 2 other homes on it. We have 3 neighbors including a child and they don't live close to our house. Which is good all the rest of the time, but I like for people to see my Halloween decorating.

So we go over to my in-laws and decorate their porch and give out candy. They live on a busy road with lots of trick-or-treaters. The kids like it when we give out candy. I put big handfuls of candy in their bags, sometimes more if the trick-or-treating is slow. I still like decorating my own house more.

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 I'm working on ideas for The Frightmare Forest Spook Trail this year.

 Somebody said that chainsaws are over-done, but when you live in an area where they haven't had much Halloween stuff, besides trick-or-treating, for years it's not over-done at all. Dagon played Leatherface last year and scared some people pretty badly. One chick freaked so bad that he had to take the mask off and talk to her and show her the chainsaw didn't have it's teeth.

 The only scare we know of for sure so far is a chainsaw killer, but it's not gonna be the movie character Leatherface. Dagon made a new mask himself. It creeps me out. It's made from real leather. We didn't kill anything to get the leather, someone who wanted the meat to eat did and we got the pelt from them.

 So we have one scare almost all the way taken care of, just gotta fix the area/scene up, but can't do that till closer to Halloween.

Tags: Chainsaw Scares Trail

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Check out The Boneyard BOOtique for Handmade Unique Halloween & Horror themed jewelry, hair accessories, and more!!!

http://www.boneyardbootique.etsy.com

Tags: Jewelry Halloween Horror Skulls Zombie Zombies Skull Scary Goth Go

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