Welcome to our fifth annual FORTNIGHT OF FRIGHT event!
October 17th – October 31st, 2017
Thanks for checking out the SIXTH (is it really!?) annual edition of FORTNIGHT OF FRIGHT where Alyssa (Books Take You Places), Amy (Tripping Over Books), and I bring you two full weeks of Halloween-related posts! We’ve invited bloggers, authors, and book lovers alike to share their favorite things about Halloween and we feature a new person and post each day.
Today, Jessie from Goldilox and the Three Weres is sharing her Fall Traditions! Check out her fall routines and say hello!
Jessie H.
Twitter: @BookishJessi
Blog: Goldilox and the Three Weres
Fortnight of Fright Fall Traditions Post
Hello! My name is Jessie! And I have a confession to make. As soon as October 1st hits, I become a total creature of habit. I have traditions and by golly I will celebrate them every year!
I pull out my battered and well-loved combat boots whether it’s cold enough to wear them or not. I rewatch the same favorite Halloween movies. I drink gallons of spiced hot cider. I reread the same books. And I celebrate All Hallow Reads. Today, I’m going to be talking about a few of the fall traditions I just can’t not follow each year.
The Movies
My family has this awesome tradition of celebrating Halloween with a week of movie nights. No matter if we live close to each other or not, we all watch the same movie each day and we share our thoughts and feelings with each other the next time we see each other or talk on the phone.
While we try to add at least one new-to-us Halloween movie to the line-up each year, we have our favorites. We usually watch the classics like Hocus Pocus, Ghostbusters, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Coraline, and Casper. For me, I have one movie I have to watch for it to feel like Halloween and that’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’ve been enchanted with this delightfully weird movie since I’ve been a small child and I never tire of it. I’ve been known to start humming “This is Halloween” randomly through out October as I try to beat my record of how many times I can rewatch it between October 1st and December 25th.
The Books
I love reading books that have an eerie atmosphere or a spooky setting in the month of October but I have two books that I HAVE to read every year.
The first is Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October. I have been rereading this book every October for years thanks to the recommendation of Neil Gaiman. It has thirty-one chapters so you can read one each night like a Halloween advent calendar. It’s the story of an eldritch scavenger hunt between some of the most famous horror names in literature. It’s told from the perspective of Snuff, the familiar of the man named Jack. It’s fun trying to figure out which familiar belongs to which famous character. I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s just so quintessentially Halloween.
The second book is Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. This book is a delightfully magical and special story about a boy who grows up in graveyard among the ghosts and other creatures. Since it’s about a boy who grows up in a graveyard you’d expect it to be creepy, but it’s actually really heartwarming. Not that it isn’t creepy and a bit macabre in parts, but you just don’t expect a story that takes place in a graveyard to be touching. But it really is, despite some somewhat gruesome elements. It’s also exciting! And funny! It also has two excellent audiobooks (one narrated by the author and a full-cast production) and a two volume graphic novel adaption if you want to switch things up.
All Hallow’s Read
I’ve been participating in All Hallows Read since 2013 and it’s been delightful! Basically, it’s a holiday made up by Neil Gaiman that gives us all an excuse to giveaway books the whole week around Halloween. My group of friends and I have adopted this holiday as a reason to get together and exchange spooky books with each other and eat a metric ton of Halloween candy. I also try to find a couple of classrooms, children’s hospitals, or women’s shelters I can donate to. Last year, I gave out copies of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater and Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco. This year, it’s a tie between The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexandra Bracken and Beanstalker by Kiersten White. Books are always a gift that keeps on giving. 🙂
Thanks so much, Jessie! I adore your fall traditions and have some of the same! I love watching Hocus Pocus every year along with some other TV shows and movies!
