Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

 As I lay drowning in my pit of post-Halloween depression, I can’t help but think back to years past, and how I’ve dealt with things over the years. I never quite had the language to describe what I was feeling in my childhood, once November hit, but I know that a nasty, achy feeling was always there. I remember once saying that it felt, on some level, like I was the only person left in the world, desperately trying to survive. Once I saw the Halloweentown movies,  I started to think of myself as being a resident who kept missing the bus, and was therefore stuck in the mortal world year after year. All I wanted was to keep it going, but somehow I never knew how.  One of my greatest attempts, though, happened when I was ten.  Halloween was on a Friday that year, so this was one of the few times I actually had the day off on November first. (Sidenote: I’ve always felt like that day should be an excused absence for anyone who loves Halloween, child or adult. As an adult...

 Something you may or may not have known about me, but possibly suspected:  I trick-or-treated until I was way past the age that society seems to deem “too old”. And, since every October, the question of “How old is ‘too old’?” seems to come back around, I thought I’d share my experiences, in defense of those “big kids” who may come around on Halloween night. As you obviously know if you know me at all, Halloween is my absolute life, and has more or less been such since my first experience with trick-or-treating at the age of four. Trick-or-treating was a magical thing to me, as a kid whose parents set strict bedtimes and very rarely ventured out for more than typical mundane tasks. It was just such a deep contrast to the rest of my life in my childhood, that it quickly became my favorite thing to do. Perhaps Halloween became my favorite holiday because every other aspect of my life was just boring, but I digress.  Anyway, I waited with bated breath for Halloween every si...