Edit: Thanks to everyone who left such wonderful memories! I really enjoyed reading them all and hearing about your favorite Halloween/Fall memories. There were about 30 entries, so we have 3 winners. I went old school and drew names out of a hat. Drum roll....
1. Shawna Adkerson
2. Leticia Viera
3. Gay Harper
Check your email ladies, I'll be sending you a note with details soon.
I've started releasing the pieces to my Halloween kit Boo! They'll be coming out over the next two weeks, just in time for Halloween.
I made some (in my opinion) terrific alphas for this kit. However, we haven't set up the alpha part of the website. And while they will be available someday, I at least wanted to give you the chance to get them now. So I'm going to have a little contest, and the prize is the Boo! Alpha Set.
Directions
There are a few directions for this contest, so be sure to pay attention and read closely. You can always edit your post if you miss something. You have until the close of the thread to edit your profile and comment here to be in accordance with the directions.
- To be eligible you must meet the DigitalScrapbook.com profile expectations.
- For a chance to win please leave one comment in this thread. Tell us about one of your favorite Halloween memories. Or, if you don't celebrate Halloween, a favorite memory from the fall season.
- This thread will be locked on 10/29/2012, after which I will randomly choose the winners.
- You have a 10% chance of winning. I will take the total number of comments and randomly select 10% of them.
Hopefully those directions are clear. Good luck!
My favorite fall memory must be the day i got to take my daughter home from the hospital
It was this beautiful day outside and we had been inside for a few days taking care and learning how to take care of our new born daughter 
I was kind of nerves going home at first since there wouldn't be anybody to ask or get help from, but when i put my feet outside i remember the feeling of calmness... I felt so happy and relaxed, the weather was perfect.. The trees just started to get colors on them and the sun was shining 
I was so proud of me and my family and i wouldn't trade that moment for anything 
I have many Halloween memories but the one that makes me laugh every time it's brought up at a family gathering is from Halloween 1994. We had just moved to Florida, my youngest son was not quite 2 years old and it was his first official "trick or treat" outing. I dressed him as a baby Daffy Duck and I was a pumpkin. My step-dad had joined us and decided he would handle the camcorder to record Nick's first trick or treat outing. We walked up to the doors, I knocked and yelled trick or treat, Nick just looked at me (not really understanding what we were doing) and grandpa was filming...or so we thought. When the night was over and we went home I decided to watch the video. I could hear us talking and laughing but could not see anything on the screen. Every now and then you could see a flash of light go across the screen and the conversations were a little choppy as if it was only picking up bits and pieces of the conversation. I would fast forward a little bit and watch some more.....finally...after the entire trick or treat event was over and we were walking up the driveway to our home....I get video! It was upside down. We then realized what had happened....every time grandpa put the recorder up to his eye, pushed the button to record...he was actually turning the recorder off! The only video we got that night were the street lights as he was walking and dangling the recorder by his side. Not one video of us going to the door and yelling trick or treat! Even so, it's still a memory that we will never forget.
My favorite memory - and favorite part - of Halloween is having my grandkids dress up in their costumes and surprise me at my door! I never know in advance what their costumes will be, and of course, I always pretend that I don't recognize them, even if I do! It's part of our tradition to surprise Grandma & Grandpa, or "Scare" them with their costumes. Of course the little ones always yell "Trick or Treat, Grandma!", so it's not hard to tell who my little ghosts and goblins are........I look forward to every special occasion with them..........
Sunny
We don't have the full-blown Halloween here in Denmark yet, and everybody who knows me will know that it's NOT to my satisfaction! I LOVE Halloween, and I do my best to get a little spooky every year. But last year we went for a fall holiday to the Danish island Bornholm (my favourite place in the world), and they actually met my every need for Halloween, and gave me my favourite Halloween memory: The small fishing town Gudhjem had decorated the streets with pumpkins and scary stuff and down by the harbour they had built a maze out of straw bales for the kids. The weather was GORGEOUS - sun and blue sky - and there I was sitting in the sun surrounded by pumpkins, witches and ghosts, drinking hot chocolate and eating a bloody finger made from marzipan. The kids in the maze were laughing like kids do when they are excited and a bit scared at the same time. I felt so happy that I even forgot that my beloved camera had chosen that exact week to die (not a single picture for the whole week!).
I don't have one particular memory of Halloween that is my favorite, but thoughts of the Halloweens from my growing up in the 60s make my heart swell with a sort of Rockwell-ian nostalgia and a longing for that sort of spontaneous community that erupts when kids everywhere are out under the light of a Harvest moon with the single minded purpose of getting as much candy as is humanly possible to carry.
In those days, no one bought costumes and there was no church sponsored trunk-or-treat or Harvest parties or much involvement from the grown ups of any kind. Halloween belonged to the kids! My brothers and I and several neighborhood kids would spend the hours before dark crammed into the only bathroom in our house fighting for mirror space and painting our faces with lipstick blood and eyeliner stitches. We would make our costumes out of whatever we could scavenge out of the Good Will bag. The second the sun dipped below the horizon, hordes of kids would gather under the streetlight and then off we'd go, to roam a 2-3 square mile radius in the safety of numbers, big kids looking after the little kids.
Halloween in those days was about freedom, fun, community and CANDY! And I wish it were still so for my little one.
If you care, I wrote about it here: http://antiquemommy.com/2008/10/31/the-lonely-skeleton-2/
I don't celebrate Halloween, but my all time favourite memory of Autumn (Fall) is playing with my grandchildren in the fallen leaves.
I would get the children to lie on the ground and cover each one up with the fallen leaves, then I would get another family member to come outside on the pretext of showing them something. The hidden child would then jump out of the pile of leaves and "scare" the unsuspecting person.
We also threw the leaves in the air creating a leaf shower and also piled the leaves up so that they could jump into them.
I had my grandkids in fits of laughter that day.
My favorite Halloween memory is from high school. The school was showing some scary movie in the auditorium on the night of Halloween, to entertain the kids who were too big to trick-or-treat (and I'm sure to keep us out of trouble). My friends and I sat with my older brother and his friends throughout the movie. I have never been very brave and hate horror movies but I tried to act cool so no one would know what a giant ninny I was. After the movie, we all started walking out to the parking lot to go to the dance that was to follow. I didn't know it, but my brother's best friend had sneaked out of the movie early and was hiding behind a truck. As we walked out, he jumped out and grabbed me. I was so scared I turned around and punched him in the nose so hard it dropped him. Everyone but him had a great laugh about it and he is still scared of me to this day!
En donde vivo no se celebraba Halloween, así que mis recuerdos son de otoño, una estación que me gusta mucho por la variedad de colores en los árboles, por las lluvias y una sensación que me ayuda a concentrarme y a meditar.
My favorite Halloween Memory is of course my first as a mother. As a scrapbooker and having my mom who loved all of those Anne Geddes baby pictures we were not shy about using my 4 week old baby to create some of our own fun memories. My mother had a HUGE pumpkin in her house that she had decorated with those marbles so it was pretty solid and sturdy. It was her idea to put my daughter inside for a picture... lots of pictures!!! It was to our surprise that when we took her out she was crying.. so upset! We couldn't really console her and then we finally figured out... that pumpkin must have been so warm inside (blanket included) it was the best swaddling she had had since being in my belly. We fed her and put her right back in the pumpkin for a nap and got THE BEST pics of her!! I will never forget those moments of my mom and I laughing so hard we had tears, and the reaction her dad had when he saw the pictures of his baby girl "stuffed" into a pumpkin. It was one of those "ah ha" moments for him that what ever I can do, I will!
In South Africa, we don't really celebrate Halloween, though it is starting to take off (very slowly), so I will tell you about some of my memories of Autumn/Fall. When I was younger, I used to go camping/caravaning with a friend every school holiday to the Drakensberg (and thankfully due to our school system we got to go often). Now for those that don't know about the Drakensberg...it is an amazing mountain range in South Africa with the most spectacular views that really make you appreciate all that this world has to offer, during the changing of the seasons you get to see the forests change from green to orange and yellow, where you could see the grass getting a little browner, you smell the fires from the farmers doing fire-breaks, there is nip in the air but the days are still warm...okay....getting away from myself here
My fondest memories of Autum would be during those school holidays, riding horses with my best friend, just the two of us, through the trees, up the one little muddy road behind the camping ground, across the little river, over the hill, at the top we would let the horses wander a bit while we ate some snacks that we sneaked out of the kitchen. On Sundays riding up to the "restuarant" on the top of the one hill, where the lady that lived there let people sit in her garden, eating the freshly made scones with homemade strawberry jam that she had made, soaking up the warmth from the sun before the afternoon thundershowers came rolling in over the mountains. Having evenings when it was still warm enough to lie out at night on a blow up matteress counting the stars and eating roasted marshmallows (note to everyone...never EVER roast a marshmallow on a fork - you will singe your lips, tongue and top of your mouth, found that out the hard way but a bonus is that you can only eat cold things like ice-cream and jelly - hee hee
)
I wish that when I was younger I took photos of those times so that I look back at them but alas I will have to settle for the memories that brings a smile to my face and a giggle when i think of that fork!
Having fun dressing up the grand-kids while they were young. Here they have a street fair sponsored by the local businesses to discourage children from going door to door. Most everything was free and the children enjoyed their selves.
@Jessica Fors: what an absolutely beautiful favorite memory to have!!!
As far as the contest: I myself don't celebrate Halloween, but my all time favorite memory of Autumn (Fall) has to do with the day I went on my first day with my hubby a little over 14 years ago. It was such a defining moment in my life, nothing would ever be the same after that moment. I remember how we hiked 3.5 miles around the lake and then sat on the porch of a cabin out there in rocking chairs and talked for HOURS "falling" in love" from the very beginning. I hope it's ok for me to post the photo of the layout I did about it here. If you're interested in reading the story I can add it later once we are all able to upload to the gallery, but the heart shaped rock in my hand in the smaller photo was found by my hubby on that first date and given to me.
Now that I've been scrapping longer digitally I would be able to better place the paper in the middle between the two pages to match up... you live & learn 
My favorite memory is watching all the fall colors. As children we used to look for colorful leaves. Press them between books and dry them out. Than use them for cards, posters, and other craft items. This is something that we are not able to do where we are living now. There is only two seasons here, summer and winter.
Shawna love your picture.
I remember I was probably about 13 or 14 and I decided to be a professional swimmer for Halloween... so I wore a bathing suit and cap and goggles, unfortunately it was like 40 degrees out and raining so by the time I had walked all over my friend's neighborhood (about 2 miles worth of walking in three hours) I was frozen, but I got to be a swimmer so I was happy... I think that was the last time I went trick-or-treating and I remember laughing and fooling around with my friends despite how cold I was.
I don't have a favorite Halloween memory. What I've always remembered about Halloween is when I was in elementary school, I was dressed as a gypsy in one of my mom's wigs and costume jewelry. My parents were divorced (twice from each other) and my mom and I lived in some apartments. I went trick or treating with some friends and when we got to this house on he corner, someone in a costume jumped out from behind a tree with a chain and put it around my neck and held me there for what seemed like a lifetime, then let me go. I ran to the door of the house and told the lady. I stayed there til I got my breath then I ran back to our apartment as fast as I could. I've always been one with an imagination and can scare myself - I don't need anyone else to do it for me!!!
Now, MANY years later, my daughter is in college and I'm able to scrap her Halloween pictures! She carved pumpkins with friends last Friday and on Halloween, her sorority is having a Halloween Date Party so I wil have those picturs to scrap as well!! I'm looking forward to it!
I fondly remember my toddler son getting involved in our pumpkin carving tradition. It is always exciting to watch a child experience something for the first time seeing the wonder and curiosity in his/her face. My son had his own tiny pumpkin to remove the pulp and seeds from and dump it in a bowl. His older siblings cheered him on as he started throwing the seeds toward the bowl and giggle as it slid down the side instead and landed on the table. He really started to get excited with the encouragement and noise so his throws weren't as accurate as the previous and his last throw hit his father in the forehead. His older siblings were guffawing on the floor and my son got this 'game on' look on his face, so he was exiled to the other side of baby gate until all the pulp was removed from the room....good times
I have so many good memories about trick or treating as a child and as I got older, friends and I took my little brothers and sisters around the neighborhood. We dressed up also but did not accept candy. The best Halloweens were the ones with my own girls. I always made their costumes. We carved the pumpkins we got at the pumpkin patch. I took them door-to-door with a couple of other moms while the dads stayed home giving out the candy. Now I am making memories with my grandchildren.
my favorite memories of Halloween would be when i was younger and it all seemed so magical and exciting. I have only experienced this once in my adult memories of the season. Every year i would dress up and go out trick or treating, I put so much effort into my costume and makeup. I was in Venice one summer and saw all of the beautiful masks and traditional clothing i was so inspired by this beautiful place. It brought me right back to my childhood. These two memories together really make Halloween special for me.
wow this alpha is really cool! I love it!
We don't celebrate Halloween in France but when I moved to the USA I had my very first Halloween celebration. I was 21. My girlfriends and I had so much fun dressing up and we went trick or treating even though it's just for kids but we felt like big kids at the time. It was really spooky. We didn't really do it for the treats but just to be part of the festivities and experience it. It was a lot of fun.
Thanks for a chance to win!
I think every year, I get a new favorite Halloween memory. My grandchildren, now 5 and 11, just love Hallloween. They really get into character and make it their own. My grandson wears his costume every day from the day he buys it, to almost the next Halloween. My daughter definitely gets her money back with him.
Every year we planted pumpkins in our backyard garden. One fall we have over 100 pumpkins and we took them up to the local store and sat in the back of our old Chevy 1957 pickup selling pumpkins. We sold many, but had many leftover. We took the leftovers and carved about 25 of them. We set them up on planks over sawhorses and placed them in the front yard. We cut holes into the backs of them and my Dad strung a string of Christmas lights which we popped through the back of the pumpkins. It was very colorful and very unique.
One of my favorite Halloween memories is from high school. I was in the marching band and we played for the town Halloween parade every year. One year I chose to wear a velveteen rabbit costume my mom had made for my cousin. I was glad I did, it snowed that Halloween and I was toasty warm the whole parade route.
My favorite fall memory is biter sweet I had got my first grandchild when my dad gotten sick I been running back & forth to the hostipal abt 80 miles away takening turns with my young brother. When I got home early morning tried mind cloudy abt noon I get the call we been at the hosptial for a while I think you should come I said ok. Only when I got fully awake I relized that call meet drive 150 miles to them. So I called my mom told her to pick up my daughter from school going to Fort Worth. I got to the hosptial at 3: 33 pm only to be told by friends and other family members that the doctor was in with her. I couldnt just not let them know I was there I ask where my son and DAUGHTER-Law was as the nurse past she said are you Mama form Abilene I said yes as I foller her down a hall open the door at 3:46 pm the doctor look ask me the same thing I again said yes The doctor said good take your place at 3:48 pm my first Granddaughter was born and place in my arms two weeks after that I lost my dad to hart fuilar. The running joke in the family is the oldest granddaughter is mine and the middle child belongs to my son but when the 3rd came in play My son and I told her he YOURS.. lol
Halloween is always a crazy time of year in our home! My 3 daughters and i (and my husband when pressured) work on costumes together. We use the costumes for the costume day at school during spirit week, so there is more at stake than just one night! We've always had homemade costumes so when the girls were little, the costumes went into the dress-up box and were used all year long. As they out grew costumes, we passed them on to their younger cousins. We have a lot of fun seeing the old ones on their cousins in photos because they live out-of-state and we miss doing trick-or-treat with them. The girls would play dress-up a lot growing up, but when they started to play something else they wouldn't change out of their costumes. We ended up running errands with them still dressed up! We didn't think anything of it until we got strange looks
it's still fun but it is also very nostalgic for us!
Great memories everyone! Thanks for sharing! What special times.
But many of you are not following our Profile Expectations and are in danger of having your comment deleted! I will be really sad to do this because all your comments are so wonderful! So please be kind to me and look through the expectations and contact me with any concerns! Or visit our forum thread on the topic.
I'll share my funniest Halloween memory - the year my brother sprained his ankle and had to be pulled in a wagon to go trick or treating. I had to carry his bag to each door along with mine and give an explanation to every household as to why I had two bags while pointing to my brother out at the street. Sibling love, lol!
Wow, it would be great to win! I was thinking it would take be a long time to get all the pieces with my points!
So I think my favorite Halloween memory of all time was when my sisters were visiting my Mom with their kids and it happened to be Halloween. Well they are Christians who don't really get into going out trick or treating. As I am the Aunt I just did not understand this, trick or treating was one of the most fun things that we did as kids. So I decided that they just had to go out and really celebrate by Trick or Treating the old fashioned way, afterall today many kids get dressed up and go to a church or community center (just not the same as door to door). So there I was with about five kids and the great thing was that Mom lived in a "townhome" community (townhomes have multiple units in one building) and so you could really get to a lot of homes in a concentrated area. Oh, and there were a few different levels to the housing area too....As it turned out I may have been really excited to collect a LOT of candy but the kids did not have the same stamina as I did. When I was a kid you could not "conquer" as many houses in as short a time! Well, when the kids were finally begging me to go back to Grandma's house I finally gave in to them. It was so much fun especially since the kids had NEVER been trick or treating before! As it turned out each of them had at least 1/3 of a paper grocery bag FULL of candy - oh and the parents loved all the candy too!
@Sarah: Love your memory! At least you got to be a swimmer even if you got pneumonia!!! hee hee (sounds like something I would've done according to my mother.
TFS!!!
I have always loved Halloween, but it was elevated to a new level with the birth of my daughter eight years ago. It is hard to narrow down just one great memory. Could it be the image of my husband carving her a Jack o' Lantern with power tools? Or maybe the look on her face when we scooped out the first handful of pumpkin innards? Or sprawling on the couch with a sticky satisfied fairy princess trying to keep her eyes open to watch The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. But I think the best one has to do with her first sojourn trick or treating without her cousins collecting her treats. She has just turned 4. We practiced for weeks before the big night. Making sure to say "Trick or Treat" and "please" and "Thank you". She was a little purple dragon. She looked adorable and she knew it (everyone kept telling her so). We went to the first few houses and things went great. She was so sweet and polite. Finally we got to the house of a lovely older lady. She was so charmed by my little girl she couldn't stop talking about her adorable "dinosaur" costume. This went on for several minutes (eternity for a 4 yr old). Finally in an exasperated tone my adorable little girl says in a rather loud voice..." It's a dragon, Lady... are you gonna give me candy or what??
I live in the Netherlands and we don't celebrate Halloween that much but i was much younger and the night before we were watching the movie "Halloween".
The morning after, i was the first one out of bed so i went downstairs and i heard a heavy breathing just like Michael Myers behind that mask and i was sooo scared that i did't dare to look. That went on a couple of days and everyone keep telling me that i was nuts until my older sister came downstairs and she heard it to. She went to take a look what it was and it was the dog of the neighbors who had crawled through the hedge. I felt so stupid.....
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