Where Does A Week Go?//October 37th, 2020

Hard to believe, it’s already been a week since Halloween Eve. I truly don’t know where the time goes. Only one short week ago, we were anticipating the magic of Halloween night, and now, we’re staring down another 359 days on the countdown.

But, I figured today might be a good day to recap my trip to Sleepy Hollow for Halloween 2020.

We left on Thursday, the 29th. It was the perfect weather for a little spooky road trip. I’ve come to appreciate gloomy, rainy days as Halloween approaches. I don’t want to see it so rainy or stormy that Halloween night events get cancelled, but that ominous feeling a few days leading up to the holiday definitely helps get you into the mood. We had no events planned for Thursday night, and thankfully so, as they likely would’ve been cancelled, but it was still just an amazing feeling to be in such an amazing place on a day that felt so spooky. There is a grocery store right by the hotel that always has vintage style decorations for sale, and of course, many horror movies to be found on TV. A night of setting in with A Nightmare On Elm Street was the perfect way to really kick things off!

It was still raining on Friday morning, even flurried a bit, but it cleared up pretty quickly into a nice, cloudy, but freezing, day before Halloween.

On this day, we had a cemetery tour planned for late afternoon, and the cemetery was absolutely gorgeous!

It was a super informative tour, and definitely something I recommend if you’re in the area and interested in its history. The cemetery is so huge it would take days to explore the whole thing! If it hadn’t been so cold, I would’ve loved to wander around even more. It’s truly gorgeous.

After the tour, we went for dinner at my favorite restaurant in the area, Horsefeathers.

The vibe of this place is truly incredible, and I love the vintage decor they put out for Halloween! I always leave wanting to add more to my own vintage Halloween collection! It’s such a cozy little place to be, with great food and a great atmosphere.

We did a little more walking around town after dinner, which also included hot apple cider, and a man dropping a giant spider on passers-by from his apartment window above one of the local shops!

Again, it was a little too cold to spend too much time outside, but it still was a great time. Back at the hotel, Halloween H2O was the movie of the evening. I went to bed so excited to see what magic the next day would bring!

It was crazy how crowded the town was on Halloween morning! Last year had been a little quieter, probably due to Halloween falling on a weekday, but there was so much to see. We went to many little shops, a farmer’s market, and took pictures of the little landmarks around town.

There were a few places that were closed off due to COVID, but it didn’t really affect the experience. Sleepy Hollow is truly such a magical town to just be in, especially around Halloween, that it doesn’t really matter what you’re doing.

Halloween night, of course, brought my favorite and most anticipated part of the trip. My favorite thing in the entire universe, a place I almost feel was made for me, The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze!

(This is just a very small selection of my favorite photos. There are many, many more on my Instagram!)

This experience is truly magical and I encourage anyone who loves Halloween to try and make it there one day. It’s like being in an alternate reality where everything is perfect Halloween magic. I’d been looking at pictures online for years of the Blaze, and, since the first time I went in 2018, I can honestly say the pictures don’t even do it justice. There is nothing in the world like this incredible show, and I will never tire of it. If it were possible for me to go every night that it’s held, I’d be there. I can’t say enough about it, and the incredible artists that put it together. It’s something that must be seen to be believed, but it’s everything Halloween should be about.

Leaving the Blaze is always the hardest part, as was leaving the town itself the following morning. As I said in one of my other posts, being in Sleepy Hollow, experiencing a Halloween like this, truly feels like coming home. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between post-Halloween depression, and homesickness.

I look forward to the day I will be on my way back, maybe even for good someday.

Stay spooky, my friends.

The Long Way Back//October 32nd, 2023

Every year I talk about November 1st...it's such a confusing day. It makes me feel so many emotions all at once. Mournful, depressed, angry...It's like a slap in the face shoving us into a new month, forcing us to forget what came just hours before. Last year, I did have somewhat of an epiphany regarding the month of November as a whole, and while I do my best to keep my own past words in mind, that doesn't make today any easier. Or easy to explain, for that matter. I suppose I should speak from my heart. Today I feel detached from reality, as if I don't really exist. Like there is no longer a place in the world for me. Just yesterday everything I loved made sense, and was loved and revered by everyone else as well. I felt like I fit. But now, today, I see those same things being quickly shoved away. Less than twenty-four hours after trick-or-treating time began, it's all being swept under the rug. The season culminated and the world is no longer a place I recog

The Spooky Community Has No Entrance Fee//October 288th, 2023

Something I’ve been seeing a lot this year around the Halloween community, possibly more than any other year, has been talk of consumerism, how much money spent on Halloween is too much, whether collecting is really that important or if it’s somehow required to truly be a part of the community, etc. I’m in no way trying to copy anyone else who’s already spoken on this subject, but I thought I would chime in and share my thoughts, as it is something I definitely think about. Now, I’ve always been relatively fortunate when it comes to how much money I have to spend on Halloween goodies. As a child, I often received money for my birthday, September 8th, at the height of the shopping season, at least as I knew it back then. No, it wasn’t enough to collect the way I do now, but it was enough to make me happy, and you also could get a lot more for a lot less back then. I didn’t necessarily stop to think about my “hauls”, but I knew even at a young age that there was nothing I’d rather be sp

Here’s Where The Story Ends//October 337th, 2020

Everyone has moments in their life when they feel like giving up. That feeling of “This is never going to happen, so why keep trying?” Sometimes it relates to a thing that would be trivial to anyone else, sometimes it’s about something more life-altering. But, we’ve all been there. I have moments of discouragement with this blog. Times I’ve told myself, “No one cares”, or “No one will read this”, etc., but I continue on, for the joy of it. And sometimes, something amazing happens. If you haven’t read my previous post, Have You Seen This Pumpkin? , I would strongly suggest doing so before continuing on with this story. The short version is, I saw a pumpkin in someone’s window when I was twelve years old, and have spent the last twenty-one years trying to find it for myself. When I published that post, I wasn’t expecting much of a response. I was really just hoping to hear someone say, “Yes, my family had this pumpkin when I was a kid!” Or “I once saw this in a neighbor’s window while

Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

Search This Blog