Halfoween//October 213th, 2021

 My life has been a perpetual countdown to Halloween for as long as I can remember.

The Hallmark store in town used to give out free pocket sized book calendars every year, and I always kept one in my purse, and doodled in it all of the spooky things I was afraid to share with the world. The flowery little books were full of drawings of pumpkins and ghosts and eyeballs, with random sentences or poems or spooky phrases. (I distinctly remember writing “I SCARE YOU” in big, bold letters on the front of one of them.) In my teen years, as post-Halloween depression seemed to get worse and worse every year, I started to count down the days whenever I felt my saddest. I would flip through my calendar and count off each box, and, though Halloween never felt close enough until September hit, it was some kind of comfort. One year I marked the entire month of August off as “The Official Opening of the Halloween Season”, as I’d started to realize that that was when some stores starting putting things out. I’d circle Friday the 13ths and the like...anything to make Halloween seem closer.

I don’t know when it first occurred to me to try and calculate the halfway point to Halloween, but, despite being possibly the world’s biggest disaster at math, I counted one afternoon, and, since there is no April 31st, marked on my little calendar, on both months’ pages, that the halfway point fell somewhere in between April 30th and May 1st. At that point it didn’t occur to me to try to celebrate it in any way, it just gave me something a little bit closer to count down to, and a burst of hope when it would arrive.

I didn’t hear the term “Halfoween” until 2012, oddly enough, in an ad for the super-popular-at-the-time kids’ TV series, iCarly. This may have actually been the origin of the term and any type of official celebration of it, as I’ve never been able to find any real references to it before then. I did a little research and discovered that somehow or another, many years after I first figured out when the halfway point would fall, it had, on some level, been “officially” declared as May 1st. I also just happened to have that day off that year, so I decided I would make a point to finally celebrate it.

Of course, basically no one, except maybe some kids who watched iCarly and likely thought it was some kind of silly joke, really knew what Halfoween was, so I had no real idea how to celebrate it. I believe, that year, I took some Halloween-themed pictures of my doll collection at the time, took a trip to the closest cemetery, and then watched a handful of spooky movies. 

As the years went on, I tried to plan things out better and make it feel like more of a holiday. I would dress up in some sort of “casual” costume, like my Jack Skellington dress, my bat hoodie, or a black dress with striped leggings and a little witch hat hair clip. I would carve a foam craft pumpkin, and bake a cake and decorate it with purple or orange frosting and Halloween themed accents we had from cakes purchased in the past. I still did the movie marathons, photoshoots, and cemetery walks as well. Though I missed trick-or-treating and other Halloween events and activities, I found a way to really make it feel like a holiday. Not quite a full second Halloween, but close. No matter how happy it made me, though, I still wished that I didn’t feel quite so alone in celebrating it.

A couple of years went by where, due to life circumstances and work and things, I didn’t really celebrate Halfoween in the same way I used to. I always made a point to at least watch a spooky movie of some sort, but a couple of years passed where I just didn’t feel very “holiday” when it came around. However, when I finally started getting back on my spooky feet, I was pleasantly surprised to see that, while I was away, it seemed that Halfoween had finally caught on! 

Last year I found myself amazed to be able to participate in all sorts of online activities, mostly hosted by the wonderful Erin Rose of Spooky Wife, Spooky Life, and was blown away by how much it truly felt like a real holiday and an extra-special countdown to Halloween. After all those years of sitting alone, counting off days on my calendar, and then making up activities in an attempt to make May feel like October for a day, my dream had finally come true. Halfoween is a real holiday, and one that truly deserves to be celebrated by everyone in the Halloween community. 

The countdown is on, and today, it feels closer than ever. There’s a shift starting, if you know how to look for it. 

Stay spooky, my friends. Always. But especially today. 

All pictures in this post were taken on Halfoween 2015.