If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know how kookie I am for Halloween. Every year I abandon sanity and turn my humble, tropical-themed home into a house of horrors, complete with animatronic monsters, creepy crawlies, and a facade over my front entrance that creates the perfect atmosphere for a hauntingly good time.
I’ve already started building props and organizing decor for this year’s shindig, and have in fact begun putting up decor in lesser-used rooms of Pirate’s Cove Tiki Bar (my abode). The goal this year, as it is every year, is to have everything done a few weeks before Halloween so I can actually enjoy the season…including going to haunted-house walk-throughs, and being able for OPP – other people’s parties.
This year’s theme is VAMPIRES. A cliché, I know, but vamps are so hot this year that I couldn’t resist. The real trick is decorating a goth Vampire’s lair with Tiki undertones…hmmm…
This will be the official 25th anniversary of my kooky Monster Mash Bash, a party I started on a crisp October day in 1986 when a hot chick I knew came to me and said she wanted to have a Halloween party at her spooky house in the woods.
Turned out the chick was nutz, so my friends and I had the party at my place. I was only 18, and funds were low so we did the whole party on a budge of 12 bucks. Cheap, market-brand soda, no-frills chips, homemade onion dip and popcorn served as the fare while we watched old black and white horror movies made fun of each others’ costumes. I was Dracula for that first party…and I suppose I will be again this year.
Of course, every party is done with a retro style theme. I mean, what holiday is more “retro-ee” than Halloween? (and don’t say Christmas. Nobody does old-fashioned Christmases anymore. Not when there’s an iPad under the tree). The whole point of Halloween is to celebrate a centuries-old tradition, with witches and goblins and vampires and zombies and all those groovy monsters that all go way back. We watch classic horror films, bob for apples and eat candy just like your grandparents did. Even the decor…at least anything store-bought…still looks like it did 30, 50, 80 years ago.
25 years ago the paper cut-out skeletons and pumpkins looked the same as they do now, the same as they did when I was a little kid. Hmmm 25 years. 25 years is a long stretch to do anything, especially a party. A third of the kittens showing up at the party won’t even be 25 years old! So I’m going to have to do something extra special for this year’s soiree. I dunno…maybe I’ll get some real monsters this year!
-Tiki “Drac” Chris, reporting from the dungeon at Pirate’s Cove Tiki Bar
I can relate. Looooove Halloween!