Halloween in Salem 2013

As I make this blog post, the TV is on the Sounds of the Season music channel which is still playing Halloween music until midnight.

It started raining slightly Halloween afternoon but I had faith the pumpkin headed gods would favor us yet again and they did. The Trick of Treaters starting coming around 5:30 and they were out in force this year! We've lived here for 11 years and we're lucky if we get half the number of kids we did this year. I usually make up around 20 goodie bags and we have some left over the next day. Last night, they went quick!

Luckily they started thinning out by 6:30 so we didn't have to turn anyone away as we got ready to head into Salem. Police presence increases a little bit every year and I heard Homeland Security was even in town. That's the creepiest thing, for reals. Anyway, here's a tiny fraction of the people out and about. Credit for the pics goes to my wife and mom, since I can not only not handle a camera in costume, but damn if I can see more than 10' away.

The Minions of Despicable Me seemed to rule the night this year. We must have seen between 8 and 10 of them. Minnie Mouse also seemed to be popular with girls of all ages. It's always interesting to see what costume trends are popular.

We had a fun time and got stopped for plenty of pics as usual. There's one in the above gallery of the Scooby Gang. You can barely see me, but I'm photobombing them in the background, all in black. The people taking photos thought I was part of their group. That could have been fun! The Jack Skellington that I'm pictured with is actually a guy I've met at a couple of Calabrese concerts so it was fun to run into someone I knew among all the people.

I went back tonight, figuring it's a Friday night and the party would still be going to some degree. I could not have been more wrong. The carnival was closed down, the haunted attractions locked up and fewer people walking around town than you'd see on any given weekend. It felt a little odd to be walking around in costume.

After making a lap around downtown I decided to leave. A nightmare can't thrive if there's no one to fear it, right? As I walked back I was coming down a somewhat poorly lit area on to a better lit street. A group of six or seven 20-something foreign ladies were on that street.



I can only imagine what I might have looked like coming down the darkened street with Halloween seeming like it was a month ago instead of a day. I could hear them reacting with nervous giggling so I waved a creepy, elongated fingered hand in their direction. And I am not exaggerating when I say they ran down the street away from me. That kinda made the night's effort all worthwhile.

A huge thanks to Countdown to Halloween and Blog-O-Ween!

And there's still time for you to enter to win a free month's subscription to Loot Crate
over at yesterday's post.