​A LOVE FOR HALLOWEEN BY REBBIE REVIEWS

It's Halloween, and we are proud to welcome Rebbie from Rebbie Reviews to the site with her article on why she loves Halloween 

I was not a popular child. Quiet, reserved, sensitive, I was an easy target really. I did have friends, but at times the fun was aimed at me rather than inclusive of me so I took solace in reading. It was a chance to disappear into another world where I was a fly on the wall of whatever was going on. At that age I loved bright colours and couldn’t stand to be in dull clothes for long.

I grew up in a Christian household, it wasn’t overly religious or strict really. There were just certain things we did differently to other families. I was part of church related groups throughout my childhood, rainbows, brownies, guides, pathfinders, the Church Choir, so I spent a lot more time within those walls than other children I knew did. People talk about the church being a community, a family but that wasn’t really how I felt. I felt it was a competition to be the best Christian, who was there most often and who could do most for the church. This was difficult with a disabled sister who required medical attention, but I always found the kindly responses when they saw us again to have an underlying snark to them, a quiet judgment.
I never really got to engage in Halloween activities. We didn’t have a lot of money so decorations and pumpkin carving etc weren’t a thing in our house. Mum and Dad would buy Halloween themed things from time to time, like green ketchup labelled as Witches Snot. I hated that bloody green ketchup, my imagination was a bit too strong for things like that so I imagined it really was snot. Much the same as when my sister ruined mushrooms for me by saying it was like eating slugs. We didn’t do trick or treating as my parents felt it was too much like begging, we didn’t have a lot of money either so we weren’t supposed to open the door on Halloween. This forbidden world lodged itself in an anxious corner of my heart, waiting.

I have two memories of my family actually embracing Halloween, one was at a Halloween Party at the dance school we all attended. My family wanted to go as the Addams Family so they did, but I didn’t want to be the little boy, so I went as a witch. I actually really regret that. My family was embracing Halloween, and I point blank refused to be part of their theme. The other experience was going to a “Light Party” a church led party for those who don’t do Halloween. It was, for want of another word, crap. I wanted to be out trick or treating, dressing up and carving pumpkins.
I decided once, that I wanted to have a Halloween sleep over, I spent the day baking Halloween cakes and putting together a small feast but nobody wanted to come over, they were busy going trick or treating.

One year, on Halloween, my parents and sister were out and I was home alone. This was the day my love for Halloween was truly born. I was given one instruction. Do. Not. Open. The. Door. I wasn’t great at being home alone as a kid, my head would start giving me all kinds of terrible situations and being afraid of the dark didn’t help with that at all. I remember I was laying in bed watching television,  my head filled with thoughts of people putting fireworks through the letterbox if you didn’t open the door, I have no idea what the film I was watching was but there was someone on a mobility scooter going along the moors, and they fell off the scooter landing on a bed of spikes which impaled them,  simultaneously a loud noise went off outside, immediately I turned off the television, but I knocked the remote for the lightswitch in doing so. Panicking, I turned everything off and laid there holding my breath in silent prayer waiting for something bad to happen.
Something changed that night, and as I got older, my tastes got darker, music got heavier, books turned to crime thrillers, ghost stories and the macabre. Heading into my teens my clothes got darker, I found it fascinating to research serial killers, try to get into their heads and understand what made them tick. Understandably my parents had their concerns as we would discuss the crimes of the likes of Richard Ramirez or Carey Stayner over the dinner table. Over the years they got used to me and even tried to encourage me to head for Criminology as a career.

At the age of 13, I went Trick or Treating for the very first time. My mum loaned me a dark coloured dress and I used an edwardian apron she’d made me for our school centenary when I was in primary school. Painting my face ashen with a bullet hole directly in the middle of my forehead and braiding my hair I became, in my mind, a terrifying apparition. Every year after that I found a friend who was going trick or treating and went with them, and fast forwarding to about two years ago, I had my very own Halloween Wedding. Unfortunately actual Halloween was too expensive, so I flipped the digits and we were wed on Friday 13th 2017, the daytime an elegant white wedding in a hotel, the evening a Halloween Party with full fancy dress.

Halloween will always have it’s place front and centre in my heart. I adore everything about the season and these days I can be found throughout October and November, in my kitchen making pumpkin soup, pumpkin pies and oven baked pumpkin filled with hot and spicy chilli. I carve a pumpkin every year, dress up and wait for the children to come knocking. Inevitably I end up eating more sweets than planned because it’s quiet.

I live in hope that one day I’ll achieve the coveted “Halloween House” status, like Lex H Jones whose annual Halloween Bash hits the gold standard.