A brief exchange of comments with a friend on Instagram earlier today got me thinking about my childhood Halloween collections. Strangely enough, almost all of my childhood decorations and knickknacks, which, believe me, there were a lot of them, mysteriously disappeared somewhere in my late teens/early twenties. My memories of these items are vivid. They each had a story and personality, and would become part of ongoing arcs in my head that would be added to every October when it was time to put the decorations back up, I only wish I still had most of these items to share here today, but alas, I guess I’ll never know what happened to them.
I did, however, manage to rebuy the most important collection of my childhood Halloweens in adulthood. As you can probably tell, I have quite a few little families of Halloween characters, whom will all be introduced here formally in good time, but it seems only right to introduce the ones who have followed me here from my childhood first: A little group I’ve always referred to as The Ghost Family.
I can’t recall the exact year, but at some point in the late 90s, I was in a local pharmacy with my mother. It was just about time for Halloween decorations to start appearing, and I found a small display that featured two ghosts who looked the same, but were different sizes: Guy Ghost, and Little Guy.
I was, of course, a child at the time and didn’t have much money, but my mother allowed me to purchase Little Guy, who I believe was somewhere around $4.99 at the time. I treasured him so much, and focused on saving my allowance money until I had the $9.99 it cost to adopt the larger Guy, and they instantly became two of my most favorite things. I can’t remember how I displayed them that first Halloween season, but I know they became a prominent part of my childhood Pumpkin Patch, and I was sad to pack them away once November rolled around. I really don’t know why it took me so long to realize that I didn’t have to play by standard calendar rules and just keep the things that made me happiest out all year long, but we all make mistakes.
The following year, much to my delight, I walked into a Hallmark store to find two more ghosts just like Guy and Little Guy: Female ghosts named Glimmer and Little Glimmer!
I distinctly remember my aunt buying these for my birthday while she was visiting one weekend. I came to think of Guy and Glimmer as a married couple, and Little Guy and Little Glimmer as their children. Once I had all four, I displayed them in my room, on my dresser standing around a corduroy pumpkin, also purchased from Hallmark with birthday money that year. That year, when Halloween was over, I distinctly remember having the Ghost Family “help” me come up with the concept of “Halloweek”, in which we continued celebrating Halloween in different ways for the remainder of the week. Again, I ask my Pumpkinseed self why I couldn’t quite grasp the concept of celebrating it all year round, but, I suppose baby steps will get you there in the end.
The year after that, much to my surprise, the Ghost Family expanded once again, this time with two ghosts in vampire costumes: Count Ghostula and Little Count Ghostula.
This is where the story in my head surrounding these guys really started to take off. I decided that Count Ghostula was Glimmer’s brother (Glimmer was chosen instead of Guy as I thought their eyes were more similar) and was the goofy uncle to Little Guy and Little Glimmer. Little Ghostula was, of course, their cousin, and they went on all sorts of wacky adventures together. It was around this time that I decided Little Glimmer had a crush on Casper (yes, that Casper, a plushie I had from when the movie came out), who was the best friend of Little Guy and Little Ghostula. Little Glimmer would get advice from her best friend, a crocheted black cat I’d bought from a craft fair that I believe was named Heidi, and a girly “guru” of a ghost, also from a craft fair, named Sabrina.
I began anxiously anticipating more additions to the Ghost Family in coming years, but alas, the following year they broke the cycle, and introduced only one larger size ghost, who, if I recall correctly, didn’t even have a stock name. I bought him anyway, and named him Cornelius, because he had a candy corn on his shirt, and he became “Uncle Candy Corn” to the Littles. Hallmark released a few more ghosts in different styles after that, but none that looked like they belonged to the same family...Until one day I made a strange discovery on eBay.
Cornelius/Uncle Candy Corn had a Little after all! She’s different from the other Littles in that she actually has a voice box in her. I was told she was supposed to say “Happy Halloween”, but by the time I received her, she was a hilarious, sputtering mess. I wish I still had the video of what she sounded like. I believe her noise went on for around four minutes! I have no idea how I never saw her in childhood, and she seems to be quite rare, as I haven’t seen her for sale again since buying this one several years ago. She’s also unique in the way that she’s the only Little ghost that isn’t identical to her larger counterpart. She looks almost exactly like the Glimmers, just in a different pose! I don’t know if she was meant to have a stock name, but she goes by Cornelia now.
When I look back on my long history of loving Halloween, I most certainly have the Ghost Family to thank for making me want to come up with stories and adventures for my Halloween characters. There’s a part of me that thinks this blog might not even exist without them. I hope to share more of them here, and introduce many of my other characters, very soon.
Stay spooky, my friends.
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