My 90's and 2000's Experience: Halloween

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for Halloween. As you can see from the title of this post, I was very intentional on when I was going to write it. I'm not going to be super fancy with this post, I'm just gonna talk a little bit about what Halloween was like for me personally growing up in the 90's and 2000's. I did this on my old blog, The Review Basement in 2020 for my now defunct series, Living with Disabilities, but this will be a broader look at it. So, let's get into it.

As many of you know I'm not a big Halloween person. I don't dislike Halloween, it's just not my favourite day of the year. It was different for me growing up because for most of my childhood I couldn't eat anything, so trick or treating never appealed to me the way it would other people. As it is, my parents took us to visit all the grandparents so they could see our costumes. It was the 90's, we didn't have social media and Messenger to send pictures to relatives on and being that it could be expensive to get a roll of film developed, we saved cameras for really special occasions like birthdays and Christmas, or any other time that Nana was over with her camera. 

Not being able to eat also meant that candy and chocolate was pointless for me, so my parents and grandparents had to get creative for treats for me for Halloween. So instead of chocolate or candy, they'd get me books or comics or a VHS tape or a toy. Something that I could have so I wouldn't feel left out since my brother and sister would get candy and chocolate. After 1993 it was a little easier since I could eat things like Aero bars and I could still experience the sensation of eating regular food without worrying about getting fat or things like cholesterol and other nutritional things. 

On the school side of things I actually got into Halloween a little bit more. We were allowed to wear our costumes in the afternoon throughout elementary school, as we'd have the class Halloween party that afternoon, or the afternoon closest to Halloween if Halloween was on a weekend that year. I had a pretty decent variety of costumes. Commander Riker, Batman, a Ninja Turtle, Robin, and Darth Vader were all characters I dressed up as. But for the most part, aside from the one year we went trick or treating in my neighbourhood, Halloween consisted of me listening to spooky songs on the radio. MAJIC 100, one of the local radio stations that was a staple in my house at the time, had an entire evening of songs like the theme from Ghostbusters to "The Monster Mash" lined up for people to listen to.

1996 was probably the most memorable Halloween for me. Mostly because we had a Halloween party at my house. My brother, sister, and I each got to invite one friend over to hang out, eat candy and chocolate and watch the Winnie the Pooh Halloween special that came out that year, Boo to You Too! Winnie the Pooh. The special aired on October 25th and I remember my dad taping it for us, so I think we watched it on VHS with our friends on Halloween rather than on October 25th, which was a Friday, with Halloween being on a Thursday, exactly like this year oddly enough.

The other thing that made Halloween in 1996 so memorable is that two days before Halloween, on October 29th, Toy Story finally came out on home video after being in theaters for about nine to ten months (it was in theaters for a long time even compared to other movies out at the time). Disney had commercials for it all over the place on TV for about a month leading up to the release date. Including several times during the October 25th broadcast of Boo to You Too! Winnie the Pooh. 

I think that's gonna be it for me for today. I just wanted to come on here quickly and talk about Halloween a little bit. Like I said at the beginning of this post, nothing fancy. But, I hope you all have an amazing Halloween and have fun whatever you're doing tonight. I'll be back soon with lots more blog posts, including one on something I thought we didn't have anymore, but just discovered we did still have, but are getting rid of. And that's the only teaser I'm giving you. You'll have to wait until next time to find out what that thing is. So until then have a great evening, Happy Halloween, and I will talk to you all later. Take care.