Nov 1, 2013

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.

2012 Halloween Salem Creep in Darkness

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. 

8 comments:

  1. Sounds like you had a fantastic Halloween or at lest a better one than me Dex. I wanted Ghost Adventures and a show about the New Jersey Devil and then it was off to bed for work and we had no Trick or Treaters in sight because of the weather and the traffic of cars that comes down my busy street.

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    1. Sorry to hear that. Weather is always a big fear of mine for Halloween but we've been very fortunate the past few years.

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  2. Always good to get one last good scare in before the season is totally out of your system.

    Happy (belated) Halloween!

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    1. Thanks, GG.The season is never totally out of my system :)

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  3. Quite awesome! That's the way to enjoy the time! Happy Hallowe'en +2 :)

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    1. Thanks Joe, hope you had a great one as well!

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  4. That's an awesome story about how you went back in costume the next day! Those women were probably terrified. I'm sure you gave them a story to tell. Maybe it was even a story they'll be telling people about their vacation in America! I really enjoyed your photos. There was such a cast of characters out that night. I would never have seen you photobombing the Scooby gang if you hadn't pointed yourself out!

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    1. The funny thing is, there are so, so, so many more people out in costume. I could literally spend all night just taking pictures of people if I wanted to sacrifice scaring them instead.

      I wish I'd come out better in that Scooby photo, it was such a good opportunity!

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