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09/04/2007: Bag Of Skulls.

The woman enjoys autumn much the same as me, but for her, I have to think it’s at least partly due to my increased agreeability to random trips to Michaels. If you don’t live near one, Michaels is a chain of arts & crafts stores. I’ve already complained about the woman’s obsession with this place, and it hasn’t let up.

During the Halloween season (Christmas too, to a lesser extent), I only raise my Michaels hate flag at half-mast, because the chain offers a spooky smorgasbord of booing bric-a-brac, and it’s often stuff that none of the other stores around here carry. They also get a gold star for being one of the first places in town to sell anything Halloweeny, and the proof is in the blood pudding: It’s barely September, and I’m already buying bags of skulls.


(click here to see the WHOLE bag!)

In fact, that’s what the product is officially titled. “Bag Of Skulls.” The shoe (or skull) fits, as it’s five bucks worth of little menacing skulls neatly nestled in a black net sack — which itself has a bunch of smaller skulls built in! So many skulls!

What I really dig (ha!) about them is that they don’t kowtow to society’s usual call for all toy skulls to look perfectly gregarious. These are some seriously mean-faced skulls. After closer inspection, I noticed that they all have gigantic fangs, so they’re not even supposed to be human skulls. It’s a bag of monster skulls! I was on the fence about buying these, but a sack of monster skulls is definitely worth a fiver.

I can’t find my giant Spider-Man figure, but picture him palming one of these babies. Totally sincere Shakespearean Yorick pose just waiting to be designed. I so need to do it. Where’d I put that guy?


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Discussion Thread: 279 comments
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Imagine the Hell of being 6 years old and not being allowed to Trick-or-Treat or attend your 1st grade Halloween party because of your religious parents.
I can only remember going trick-or-treating twice before the parents went nuts.

Ghosted by Somethin' Funny @ 09/08/2007 3:27 AM EDT

Man, that really sucks. Somebody above mentioned something about forcing their kids to go trick-or-treating (might have been you-I don’t remember), and I totally second that! I don’t have kids, but if and when I do they are so gonna love them some Halloween.

My earliest memory of Halloween is dressing up for Kindergarten as Yoda. I remember the rubber band on the mask kept breaking and the costume was like 16 sizes too big.

Ghosted by DJ D @ 09/08/2007 3:37 AM EDT

Blarg. Parents who don’t let their kids do Halloween stuff for religious reasons just angries up my blood. Not because I have anything against religiosity, mind you, but because it just shows such a determined lack of both common sense and historical awareness.

I mean, if you read up on the history of Halloween and the history of Christmas, they’re startlingly similar. Both take place on what had been major pagan holidays, as a sort of concession to the people they were trying to convert. Both retain all kinds of pagan symbols and traditions, for mostly the same reason. And both have been enmeshed in secular society for so long that they’re perfectly capable of standing on their own no matter what you believe spiritually.

The only real difference that I can see is that Christmas is the celebration of the Nativity, which is something more or less everyone can get behind, whereas Halloween-as an extension of All Saint’s Day-relies on a theology that some later Protestant sects wished to distance themselves from, particularly the whole sainthood bit. So when you’ve got whole denominations not celebrating a holiday, you’ve got generations of parents trying to explain to their kids why they don’t get to dress up like a Power Ranger and score free candy, and eventually you get to our present sorry state.

And the worst part is that in this case, I’m not confident that education will help. Based on some people I’ve known, this information is just as likely to make them take away Christmas instead of restoring Halloween.

Sorry, I know this isn’t really the sort of discussion this board is for, and I really don’t mean to offend anyone. But it just irks me that so many people have a perfectly good 2000 year span of quirky, fascinating history with which they can calibrate their beliefs, and they seem to be content to ignore it all.

Ghosted by Jedoc @ 09/08/2007 7:57 AM EDT

I learned a long time ago that, sadly, many people in the world decide what they want to believe and then decide that anything in opposition to that belief -historically or even religously ‘accurate’ as it may be- is wrong in their eyes. It all comes down to who taught them or how they learned those said beliefs. I just wish they would also do a lesson on how to respect other’s ideals and beliefs as well….

And that’s all I’ll say ’bout that ;)

Ghosted by Shuanfu @ 09/08/2007 8:38 AM EDT

As someone who is both a Christian and heavily into mythology, I feel like I should weigh in on the topic.
For me personally, there are few things I like better than a good old-fashioned Halloween season complete with costumes and candy, even at 26. And there are a lot of so-called Christians who are completely ignorant and damage their children much deeper than the simple social shame of not trick-or-treating, but it is, nonetheless, their choice.
Others may not be as ignorant – they may know the history and still believe that it is simply not an activity that they want their children to participate in, and are not fanatics about it.

The thing about the Christian faith is, it’s mysterious and constantly evolving, and needing to be reinterpreted for each generation; they have a choice, then – just as we all choose to celebrate it – to not be involved. Ignorant or not. I’m not offended by anything anyone has said – in fact I’m mostly in agreement. Just my two cents.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie is so sick of the summertime @ 09/08/2007 9:46 AM EDT

I would like to chime in on this suddenly serious subject.
The past 2-3 years, I have felt more conflict about celebrating Halloween. I was raised in a Baptist church and still live in the Bible Belt. I dressed up and went trick or treating every year and even went as the Grim Reaper to our church’s fall festival in 1989 .
But Halloween has changed in a lot of people (i.e. Christian’s) minds.
My parents are more religious now than there were when I was a kid so they do not “do” Halloween anymore but they don’t give me static about dressing my kids or our yearly Halloween Party at my in-laws (no, we don’t dress up but we do decorate).
I think as I grow older and as a Social Studies teacher, I tend to look at what Halloween means. The biggest conclusion that I can come to is that it is a way to deal with death which we are all ambivalent about (if not terrified). This past year, Mrs. Manimal’s uncle lost his battle to cancer and his death is a shadow on this year’s Halloween Party. Ghosts, tombstones (even funny ones), etc. are unfortunate reminders to a mourning widow and 3 college-aged children he left behind.

One of the basic tennants of Christianity is that the old “be in the world and not OF the world” and there can be no more blatant example of this than a celebration of death, blood, scary stuff, and evil (???).
Think about all the stuff that goes along with Halloween: Is any of it positive? You got Jason and Freddy slicing people up, eyeballs in stew, etc.

A lot of this stuff is regional too. I know a lot of people in different parts of the country will have a different perception if you are not a Southerner. I am guessing that a lot of areas outside the South will laugh or be full of contempt for the sentiments down here. Well, there is not much I can do about that. CLICK MY NAME FOR INSIGHTFUL CENSUS DATA

But then you look at the historical roots (see Jedoc and Shuanfu’s posts above) and one thinks about just the campy Americana and commericialization of it all. Shouldn’t those traditions be perserved? Are we going to subject to the tyranny of a select minority?? This is a capitalist country and there is a lot of money to be made and jobs created due to the black and orange shenanigans of late October. What would happen if Halloween went away?

So many issues. This is why the Christmas controvesies are so much simplier. Pro-”Merry Christmas” or Pro-”Happy Holidays”. Pro-Nativity scene or anti-Nativity scene. Again, Christmas is a celebration of something positive whether you believe in it or not. Halloween…the burden is heavier.

Sorry to come off so heavy but I don’t have a blog or a diary so this is my stream of conciousness on the topic of Halloween today. What say you X-Ers?

Ghosted by The Manimal @ 09/08/2007 9:57 AM EDT

2 things I forgot while I was writing my autobiography up there:

1. After the part where I say “death which we are all ambivalent about”, I meant to bring the point home that Halloween is a way to laugh or deal with death. Same way we laugh at F13 kills; it’s a way to deal with the horrific images that for some reason are entertaining.
TERRIBLE BUT TRUE STORY: We went to go see SCHINDLER’S LIST on a school field trip. I was a sophomore and we sat by the senior guys who made jokes the whole time. Now I understand that that was their way of detaching and not choosing to cope with the seriousness of the subject matter.

Maybe that’s what Halloween is all about: It’s a way to cope with mortality. Or it could be about candy; who the hell knows?

2. After reading Lori’s post, I guess I should have insisted on FALCO for my wedding. :)

Ghosted by The Manimal @ 09/08/2007 10:06 AM EDT

Manimal – Good to see that there are other people who actually think things through before subscribing wholeheartedly to one belief or another. Halloween, as far as I am concerned, is subjective; for some it is about all of the grim stuff, for others it’s about candy…one of my friends only lets her kids go as “good” characters (though her 5-yo got to go as Darth Vader this year, claiming complexity of character).
Plus, once again, it comes down to parental responsibility – you have the final say in what your kids are exposed to about the holidays. I love that you went as the Grim Reaper to church, I will be laughing about that for days.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 09/08/2007 12:02 PM EDT

One time, at a younger age, I was forced to attend Church around October. They decided to tell us about how Halloween was rooted in evil and that the Devil was using it to play some smoke and mirrors on us.

The ignorance made me puke, and I never went back to Church. Never will. Hail Satan! :-P

Ghosted by 7. @ 09/08/2007 1:50 PM EDT

Manimal
I concur with Jessica Marie. You must decide what you feel is right. As some may or may not know, I am in the process of becoming a Nazarene Pastor/Chaplain and I’ve been attending seminary for a couple years. That said, you can research my Wesleyan background for theological views if you wanna know where this is coming from. That said, I love Halloween, and have since long before my conversion (was not raised Christian). There may have been some nefarious purpose long ago, but the great/bad thing about capitalism is it tends to crush the meaning and life out of EVERYTHING until it’s just a cash exchange. Bad for Xmas, Good for the Ween. In my opinion, Halloween’s negative purposes were robbed of effectiveness by Christians and then killed off by Wal-Mart selling cheap costumes. In my opinion, does it celebrate spooks/zombies/evil magic? Perhaps, to an extent. But these forces are seen as impotent in our age.
[Begin Pastor Mode]
That said, as a Christian I believe the Spirit leads us and convicts us in the way we should go. Seek your answer in prayer and listen to the conviction God lays on you.
[End Pastor Mode]

But don’t be that one house without the candy. We kids hated that house. ;)

Ghosted by Terror Claws Cole @ 09/08/2007 2:01 PM EDT

But that’s the thing: I don’t like feeling conflicted.
We ARE having the Halloween party, E. Claire and Allie ARE dressing up and going trick-or-treating, I will probably decorate my classroom again this year like I have the 3 previous years (although I can see some angry mamas running up on me with that someday and ending it).
I am usually pretty decisive and know what I believe and how I feel about things. This is the one issue that really bothers me because I LOVE HALLOWEEN but…
Another thing is now that E.Claire is 2.5, she is getting scared by all of the Halloween stuff in the stores. I tell her it’s okay and all in good fun but…
but
but
but
“Everybody I know has a big but. C’mon Simone, let’s talk about your big but.”

Ghosted by The Manimal @ 09/08/2007 2:24 PM EDT

Cole, I was raised Nazarene but have since drifted away from it into Non-Denominational Land. I know that all Nazarenes can’t be as crazy as the ones I grew up with– going to the movies means you’re going to hell? I’m sorry, no.

Anyway, I already said this but I didn’t get to do many Halloween-y things as a kid either. :( I plan on making up for that when I have kids.

Ghosted by Annette @ 09/08/2007 2:34 PM EDT

With all this talk of religion and Halloween, I have decided that I am going to put my ordained minister-ness to use and start a Halloween religion.
Not with any paganism or Satanism or even any spiritual beliefs at all.

Here, I have written the Halloween bible.

1. Wait all year for Halloween.
2. Go apeshit when September rolls around.
3. Come November first, repeat step 1.

Ghosted by Somethin' Funny @ 09/08/2007 3:08 PM EDT

*kicks soapbox out of the way, and stands with one foot on Jack O’Lantern, one on goofy paper-mache skull, and holds styrofoam tombstones in one arm like Ten Commandments, with witch’s broom in other arm*

Good afternoon, boils and ghouls. I go by the name kingklash ’round these parts, and I was born on November first, in the year of our Lord, Nineteen-hundred and Sixty-nine. On the Day of All Saints, for which the Eve of All Hallows was named. I am a self described “Lapsed Baptist” and staunch defender of Hallowe’en. The above postings have covered many valid points in overall atitude in favor of one of my favorite holidays, so all I can offer is a personal perspective.
Even though I am born and bred Baptist (chicken and rolls every First Sundy), I wa also raised in certain ethnic traditions,some Choctaw, some Arapaho (dad’s side), but mostly Comanche and Kiowa (mom’s side, as we live mostly in the area), and we were taught certain things about the spiritual side of our world. I could go into a deep, anthropological and historic description that sounds like so much new age rhetoric, but I’ll just quote my Comanche Grandmother: Only bad people have anything to fear from ghosts. The way we were brought up, God gave us certain dominions which include being able to tell the spirits to bug off. So, what kind of lessons is your church giving if you think movie monsters and foam fubber body parts is a E-ticket to Hell? My Faith, my Church, my God, and my Heritage make me stronger than any thing that shambles out of the graveyard. Dressing up as a spook is saying, “This is all you mean to me. Now take a piece of candy and go back to your hole, you knucklehead.” Now they can’t be too smart if costumes stared off as a way to confuse bad spirits, don’t you think? Now, watch this drive…

*jumps back, and uses broom to whack the heck out of the skull, breaking it open, scattering candy and toys all over X-E.*

Ghosted by kingklash will ALWAYS have Hallowe'en @ 09/08/2007 3:33 PM EDT

Well, if I go by what I’ve seen in my college years, then Halloween is the holiday when all the girls can get away with dressing like a slut.

:)

Ghosted by Cameron T. @ 09/08/2007 3:55 PM EDT

When can’t girls get away with dressing like sluts?
Not that I’m complaining.

Ghosted by Somethin' Funny @ 09/08/2007 3:58 PM EDT

*looks up from stuffing face with Fun Size Milky Ways*
Sluts? Where?

Ghosted by kingklash @ 09/08/2007 5:32 PM EDT

Annette

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. Have you heard of our money back denomination guarantee? No, just kidding, that doesn’t exist. Actually, from what I hear, that all changed in 1986, as my wife went to see Willow as the first movie they could see. The old school reason was movies are bad mmkay? But now they’ve chilled. Movies good.

And there’s a big difference in “Maybe you shouldn’t do X, Y or Z” and “You’ll go to hell.” We Nazarenes just have a code we try to live up to, but it doesn’t have much to do with the “Final Destination”. Trying to keep it halloweeny, folks, I’m trying.

And come to my church, I’m not crazy. I’ll let ya know when I get hired. BTW – folks are in Tulsa, for you XE Okies. I consider myself an XE Okie also.

Ghosted by Terror Claws Cole @ 09/08/2007 6:24 PM EDT

Frisky Dingo, hell yes.

Ghosted by Knegative @ 09/08/2007 7:03 PM EDT

I grew up in a very conservative Baptist family and I totally see where people are coming from on this argument. I have no desire to weigh in on the subject because I am hungry and a bag of glow in the dark wrapped Fun Size Snickers is really all I can think about.

Ghosted by kb @ 09/08/2007 7:59 PM EDT

Look how normal we are, talking about religion and not killing one another. Inspiring.
Manimal – I know exactly what you mean about not wanting to feel conflicted; I am such a black-and-white person, but if there’s one thing I’ve been dealing with lately it’s the greyness of the mystery of God and faith. Makes me miss Catholic school. Except for the dress code.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 09/08/2007 8:40 PM EDT

Well, glad we got that all sorted out. Next: Thanksgiving. Harmless nationalistic holiday, or demonic orgy of balloon idolatry?

Ghosted by Jedoc @ 09/08/2007 8:50 PM EDT

no SNT? my first week back and no SNT this is just perfect lol…

look at this link you guys, this is a Nickelodeon cooler I bought at goodwill for a dollar last weekend copyright 1991, it’s a small kids cooler, pretty neat! Thought you would appreciate it.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a55/Goobian/Picture174.jpg

Ghosted by Goob @ 09/08/2007 9:43 PM EDT

Goob: Oh, holy crap. My best friend had that as a lunch box in first grade. I only had the three channels at home, and Nickelodeon was this magical faraway land of green slime and vaguely naughty cartoons.

His family had satellite, which is why his lunch box had a sombrero-wearing surfer dinosaur thing on the front and mine was tan and had a picture of a cotton boll on it. My uncle got it for free from a company that sold him defoliant or some damn thing.

Ironically, not only did I hit the soft-sided lunch box fad several years too early to do me any good, but a 70s era brown cooler with a picture of cotton on it would have been unbelievably hip and ironic in high school. I was ahead of my time, that was my problem.

Anyway, thanks for the unexpected burst of nostalgia. Cool find.

Ghosted by Jedoc @ 09/08/2007 10:04 PM EDT

Wow, that’s a groovy cooler. A friend of mine gave me this sort of tote case/carryon type of thing (kind of hard to explain with showing the picture). It’s got a handle of course and buckles like what you would find on a briefcase, but it’s all soft. Anyways, it’s a good 20 years old and has a rockin’ picture of Optimus Prime on the front of it. She said she found it at a thrift store and automatically thought of me. I’m going to use it to carry all my sketches and things in.

A few years ago I mentioned to another friend in passing that I at one time had a grey Members Only jacket that got lost when I moved and that I kind of missed it. Not a week later she randomly shows up at my door without warning and carrying–sure enough–a grey Member’s Only jacket exactly like my old one that she said she found at a thrift store. I’ve got the best friends ever!

p.s…How come I’m getting the “Slow down cowboy” message and this is like the only one I’ve posted in the last few hours? Weird, that.

Ghosted by DJ D @ 09/08/2007 10:16 PM EDT

yea

Ghosted by Sam @ 09/08/2007 10:25 PM EDT

awww Jedoc if you lived nearby it would be yours, I mean a buck’s a buck. It’s not worth sending cross country though.

and DJ D Cool stories. That sounds like an awesome bag you have. I want a retro jacket, those with the rainbow on it, around the shoulders you know what I mean? On that 70’s show they got to wear some cool threads.

Ghosted by Goob @ 09/09/2007 12:22 AM EDT

I actually work at a Michaels.
The Halloween stuff went out the start of July. There’s Christmas stuff out at ours.

I get to do the demos for thing. Flaming knives to crave foam pumpkins. Hot Knife: How is that not amazing?

Ghosted by Sara @ 09/13/2007 11:10 PM EDT

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