Hidden Room

You found a hidden door in the bookshelf and stumble into an empty stone room, save for a stack of papers near the window.

You find a stack of black index cards labeled "Halloween Timeline." You pick up the first one to read about the Origins of Samhain, and in a fervish thirst for knowledge, read them all to learn about Halloween history in the USA.

Spooky 365

I am a spooky365 person. I live in the mindset of "spooky season," because scary shit happens more than one month a year. My "official spooky season" every year goes from June to December.

My spooky season comes in stages. It starts in June because that is when I start hating my life and everything about it due to the heat. Staring the year's spooky season then is what gets me through summer. Also, externally, retail Halloween begins and you can carve watermelons for Summerween.

My birthday is in August, and thus I've claimed it as the time to begin decorating for Halloween. I start inside with non-fall Halloween stuff that creeps in through my house. As spooky365, I already have a lot of what people would consider to be "Halloween decor" out as "normal home decor." Some of that gets put away for the season for my true Hween decor to replace it. Most of my decor creates added clutter, which I like for a seasonal atmosphere. I am not a minimalist.

I start watching my spooky movies for the season in August, too. This continues through December, though my Letterboxd list usually only includes movies watched through October. This is partially to make it an actionable list for others who want to watch spooky movies for Halloweentime but don't want to watch Thanksgiving or Christmas themed movies... but also because I am not interested in double-tracking all my watches for several months, just enough to capture the spirit.

Usually by the end of August I have mapped out who is going to get Halloween mail, bought all my cards, and started addressing the envelopes. It takes all of September to finish my spooky mail. Most years I'm still working on them going into October, but I try to get the majority in the mail the first weekend of the month.

September begins the social season of spook, when people are willing to start going shopping, watch spooky horrors, and hear all about what I've been doing. Before that, I find they don't want Halloween to come "too soon," which I am respectful about. Everyone celebrates in different ways and I have plenty of ways to do it alone.

October is the show-stopper! My life basically goes on pause throughout the entire month of October in favor of scary endeavours. Every weekend holds a spooky activity with one or another friend, and I am invested in creepy thoughts and feelings all month. Generally, all other projects/life things stop (except for the required life maintenance stuff) during the month.

After October and beyond fall, I get into spooky winter. This isn't explicitly part of the Halloween season but I do adopt the chilling moods of Nightmare Before Christmas in the months between.

My Halloween History

Some events that got me to where I am today as a Spooky365 person.

In 2017, my parents moved to a smaller house and downsized. Everything my mom had saved since we were kids came into our possession. I found SO many Halloween things, including one of the first decor items I'd ever purchased with my own money: a scared black cat with sparkly silver borders. I had forgotten about that. As a teenager my room was covered in "special interest" things including primarily band posters and international maps, but also hints of ghosts, aliens, and Draculas.

Also in 2017, I met the first "Halloween 365" person I'd ever met in my life. I didn't know that was a thing you could do. It didn't even occur to me that instead of yearning for spooky season every year and disliking the rest of the year, I could just live with that as a mindset.

Since then I've been building on the lifestyle. "Halloween decor shopping season" is actually "home decor shopping season." Instead of getting a billion frog skeletons for display, I get practical items like mugs, dishes, reusable containers, blankets, utensils, and catch-all buckets. Instead of baskets, boring silverware, solid color plates, and quilts, I have spooky everything. Lamp shades featuring stills from horror movies that help dim the lighting in my house and prevent sensory overload. A small bluetooth speaker in the shape of Thing from Addams Family so I can listen to music, but not too loudly. Where you might buy something impulsively in spring, I make a note to look for an equivalent item when retail Halloween begins.

It's certainly not for everyone. I've had comments asking how I could possible go day-to-day with an 8.5 foot skeleton prop hanging out in my home, scaring me in the dark? What possesses me to have heads and hands hanging from the ceiling? Well, I don't mind hitting my head on them. I like the way the ghost trails linger on my shoulders when I pass.

I don't see my spooky365 decor as Halloween decor. I don't see skeletons, ghosts, bats, or black cats as "Halloween-specific" themes. Ghosts can haunt you all year. You could die any day.

Being surrounded by death doesn't scare me; in some ways I always have been. As a depressed person, friend to depressed people... well, you know how it goes. In some ways an interest in the macabre makes it easier to deal with the reality of our mortality. In other ways, I am incredibly fascinated by decomposition and the course nature takes with our bodies. In all regards, I've always been drawn to dark and melancholy things, like a goth without the fashion sense.