How do you feel about the Halloween? Are you getting into the action of dressing up or helping your children find a costume? Or are you just looking forward to November 1st?

Since I am a holistic Marriage, Family Therapist, I focus on the different ways that people can feel better physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. My mission is to help people to “love themselves to peace,” which I believe is the key to health, happiness, success, and world peace.

As I observe this holiday, I notice some major benefits of celebrating its festivities. To begin with, people have fun dressing up their homes, offices, and selves. Having fun is beneficial at all ages. It reduces stress, helps us be more positive, and balance our lives.

Secondly, most people have been programmed by their parents and society to conform to a specific dress code. However, on this holiday, everyone is encouraged to wear whatever they desire and be as outrageous as they choose.

Thirdly, we have many sides to our personalities and we often hide them from others and ourselves. On Halloween we have the opportunity to express a different part of us. For example, John was brought up to be a quiet, nice little boy. On Halloween he loves to be a loud, scary ghost. How healing it is to express this side of himself in a safe, fun way.

The fourth treat of Halloween is it is an excuse to take time out from busy schedules to have parties and socialize.

Another benefit of Halloween parties is that people who feel shy in groups are more likely to come out to these events. Wearing masks and costumes can help them feel less self-conscious, and offers them an opportunity to feel comfortable in a situation that is usual not.

This holiday also offers children the opportunity this one time in the year to dress up, go to people’s homes, and ask for treats. They experience the gift of receiving. Healthy snacks, little, safe toys, or coins would be great choices to give these young ones in costumes.

Meanwhile, children offer others the opportunity to experience the gift of giving (in this case, treats). It is very healthy to enjoy the gift of giving and receiving.

The eighth benefit of this holiday is the fun adults and children have as a family project to pick pumpkins, cut them into faces, and light the inserted candles. In these busy times, quality family time is a gift to everyone involved. Of course, decorating the home inside and out, making Halloween cookies, etc. are more fun family activities.

I personally love to go into the stores on October 31st and see how the sales people dress up. It is fun for me to especially observe the bank tellers in their outrageous costumes. Therefore, even if I do not participate in all of the above, I still can have fun on that special day.

The tenth way we can benefit from this fall holiday is it offers us an excuse to meet our neighbors. When adults accompany children to other homes to say, “Trick or treat!” they can also introduce themselves to people in the area.

In summary, there are numerous ways you can appreciate this holiday and how you can participate. If you focus on the positive, you can enjoy October 31st, no matter what you choose to do.

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All kids love Halloween, but many parents don’t because of worries surrounding trick-or-treating.

You don’t want your children to be out on the street on their own; you’re not keen on the quality of the treats they bring home; and you may even be worried that someone could put something in a treat bag that would be unsafe. …but all your little munchkins want to do is get out there and have some fun! What can you do?

Well, there are a whole range of options available, and 5 of the easiest are right here for you:

1. Organise a trick or treat tour.

The TOUR element is the important bit. Choose a route with a number of pre-arranged stops, and agree with the householders at those stops what to give as treats and how much. It’s a good idea if you can do this with other parents in the area. Make sure that the kids know that there is a plan and they have to stick to it – or else forfeit their treats! Make sure that there is a chaperone available to accompany the kids on their rounds too.

2. Tell ghost stories around the fire.

If you don’t live in town or near other families with kids to help you with a tour, have some old-fashioned spooky fun at home. Have an open fire or gather a few candles on the table and take it in turns to tell gruesome ghost-stories. After each story toast a few marshmallows on skewers. The person voted spookiest story-teller wins a prize.

3. Have a competition to keep the gang busy.

Got a few kids you can pitch against each other and keep them busy? Great! Have a competition to make the best Halloween creature. A ghost-making competition is a good one, as all you need are a few old sheets (from a charity shop if you don’t have any) and the colouring and craft supplies you probably already have at home. Think of a prize to give to the winner – and to forestall arguments, make it something that is big enough to share with all the others. The great thing about this sort of competition is that it works for any number of kids from 2 upwards.

4. Host a Halloween party.

We don’t often see old fashioned Halloween parties nowadays and more’s the pity. Some traditional tricks and games will keep kids (and grown-ups!) happy all evening and won’t break the bank either. Think: apple bobbing; find the eyeballs (pickled onions in a big pan of water and tea-leaves – which feels disgusting!); and the finger in the matchbox. Ask your own parents and grandparents for more ideas – they will remember doing all of these things as children.

5. Find alternative activities in your area.

If you want a quiet life, have a look in your local area for organised activities that you can take your children along to. Organised activities can be more expensive than doing it at home, but you don’t have to worry about arranging it yourself. Schools and youth clubs may be organising parties, and visitor attractions may be doing something special for Halloween this year. Check online listing sites and local newspapers and magazines for details.

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Halloween is almost upon us once again, and the proliferation of celebratory items available in mainstream stores got me thinking- why isn’t Halloween made into even more of an event? Like a spooky Christmas. Think about it- you could have jolly old Satan Claws come and fill your stocking with entrails, surround your Halloween tree with sweets and rotting carcasses, and then you could all sit down to a Halloween dinner of roast pumpkin and Innocent Bystander pie. Or something similar. seriously though, it could be turned into more than just Trick Or Treating and bobbing for apples. Plus, there’s more out there than just toffee apples to give out as Halloween gifts.

It isn’t just kids that can celebrate Halloween. Taking it as the commercial version of Halloween and not the religious festival observed by the pagan community (Samhain, prononced ‘Sow-en’ or ‘Savven’ depending on who you talk to), Halloween can be a blast for kids and adults, and can serve as a bonding experience for families. Involving children in Halloween styled games can be a great way to entertain youngsters and educate them on traditional pastimes (even when their origins have become so obscured by popular culture). Dressing up, getting made up as witches and monsters and the like can be fantastic fun for all involved, and properly supervised Trick-Or-Treating is a great thing for making memories.

Another great method for making a Halloween night memorable for children would be to gather a group of them together for a mini Halloween party before Trick-or-treating. read them a spooky story from the proliferation of kid’s horror series that are on the market, or show a suitable movie.

But Halloween isn’t limited to the domain of kids, and nor should it be. With all manner of themed events on in clubs, cinemas and so on there’s a ton that the adult Halloweener can sink their teeth into (sorry). There’s a great deal of Halloween themed merchandise that would make great gifts for loved ones, such as licensed horror movie memorabilia and other horror merchandise such as action figures, posters, statues, and the movies themselves. You could check out things like the ever-creepy Living Dead Dolls figures, or the movie collectibles created by MacFarlane Toys, NECA and Sideshow Collectibles.

Want a great Halloween evening in? How about you gather a selection of friends, some suitably kitsch horror movies (Go for the cheese more than the hardcore dark stuff- zombie films, cheap B-movies, Chucky, Underworld, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and its billion sequels, films you can shout at), Halloween snacks (stock up on kids snacks and themed sweets- there’s nobody saying the grown-ups can’t have some fun too), add some suitably camp music (I recommend ‘Project 1950′ and ‘American Psycho’ by the Misfits, and anything by the Cramps) and voila, you have the makings of a fun Halloween party in your own home. Granted, that sounds like a typical night in at our place, but still, there are people out there who are actually normal. Somewhere. I think. get your place decked out with cobwebs and skulls and make an event out of it.

When choosing movies for your Halloween night, I’d suggest finding a bunch of 80s horror titles, as they really do capture the right fun atmosphere you’d need for an evening making fun of everything with your friends. Why 80s? Listen. While some may argue we are enjoying something of a resurgence in ‘true’ horror movies, with your million SAW sequels and million remakes of classics, I am left wondering what happened to the horror films that would have you yelling ‘COOL!’ amidst your screams. The 1980s are a prime example of an era in which horror movies had all the horror stuff down pretty well and mixed in a liberal dose of humour and fun without becoming parodies. While horror has become either more serious or more bland in recent years, with endless repetitions of the same old themes, old schlock fiends like myself are left wanting something that isn’t being delivered, namely films that you want to see again.

You see, a major problem with current horror cinema is that companies are making PRODUCT instead of FILMS. You can go into any DVD outlet and find rack upon rack of Wrong Turn/Scream/Hostel/Halloween knockoffs that are cheap and easy to make, and there’s barely a memorable title amongst them.

I’m not just wallowing in nostalgia though- horror is getting seriously bland. Look at the 80s. Evil Dead 2. Fright Night. The Lost Boys. Pumpkinhead. Elm Street. Hellraiser. Vamp. Return of the Living Dead. Hell, even Rawhead Rex was better than much of the current output masquerading as horror. All of these films had their scares and their gore, but there was a definite ‘romp’ quality to each of them. They hit their beats so well you could almost pick out the rhythm. I’d love to see a return to that sort of structuring. Many recent films and their subsequent franchises don’t seem to want to do anything new with the format they are beating like a particularly dead horse.

Want a fun evening’s viewing? Check out any of the following horror flicks for some entertainment with your gore:

The Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, An American Werewolf in London, Bad Dreams, Hellraiser, Evil Dead 2, Return of the Living Dead 2, Creepshow, Day of the Dead, Trick or Treat, Poltergeist, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, A Nightmare on Elm street, Re-animator, Scanners, The Burning, Class of Nuke ‘Em High (okay, this is a spoof but it still kicks ass), From Beyond, House, 976:Evil, Witchboard, Warlock, The Thing, Bad Taste, Cat People, Child’s Play, Cat’s Eye, Chopping Mall (BEST. TITLE. EVER), Dead Zone, The Gate, The Hunger, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Monster Squad, Society, Sorority babes in the Slime-ball Bowl-O-Rama….. Jeez, there’s thousands of ‘em. Go seek out some fun.

There are so many ways to make your Halloween a fun night to remember. Start off with a movie night as suggested above, then go along to a themed party or concert. Preferably in costume. Check local listings for events in your area that you can go along to and take part in. If all this sounds like a no-brainer, that’s because it is. With a little effort you can transform what has become a relentlessly commercial day into something you can genuinely enjoy without a massive amount of cost. Halloween celebrations shouldn’t be all about handing out sweets to bored kids on your doorstep- it should be enjoyed and relished. I mean, how often can you actually run around with a plastic trident and horns on during the rest of the year? Actually, don’t answer that.

Andrew Hawnt is an expert on popular culture, horror collectibles, movies, TV, comics, movie collectibles and more. He writes for the famous Starstore blogs and the popular movie collectibles site www.starstore.com as well as being a renowned music journalist and science fiction author. With boundless enthusiasm for pop culture, movie memorabilia, geek culture and the comic book industry, he is always ready to bring the latest news and views on the entertainment industry to you.

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