As the season of spice lattes, pumpkin carvings, leaf-falling weather and latex costumes arrives, its’ easy to spot the Halloween spirit creeping up everywhere. I love everything about Halloween—from the flavored pumpkin everything, seeing children beg for candy, decorated shops and neighbors homes in cobwebs and ghoulish lights, to the six hours of recorded Halloween themed television I’ve got waiting for me at home. As All Hallows Eve draws ever closer, here’s my top 8 list of how to get that Halloween fix from recipes to nights out:
1. Pumpkin Sangria (and other Halloween drinks for the season)
Recipe courtesy Food Network’s Sandra Lee
Pumpkin Sangria
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2 tablespoons maple syrup
six 4 to 5 inch long cinnamon sticks, for garnish
6 pumpkin candies, for garnish
1 bottle white wine chilled
3 cups mango peach juice blend or tropical juice blend, chilled
1 cup pumpkin spice liquer, chilled
Directions
In a small bowl, combine the sugar and pumpkin pie spice and mix until well combined. Transfer to a saucer. Add the maple syrup to a second saucer. Lightly dip the rims of 6 punch glasses into the maple syrup. Then dip the rims of the glasses into the spiced sugar.
Insert the cinnamon sticks into the bottom of each pumpkin candy and set aside. In a pitcher, combine the wine, juice and pumpkin spice liqueur. Stir and pour into the rimmed glasses. Garnish with the pumpkin candy cinnamon sticks.
Cook’s Note: If you cannot find pumpkin spice liqueur, combine 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice with 1 cup brandy in a container fitted with a lid. Shake vigorously and let sit for 1 day to infuse into the brandy.
2. Decorations
Ah! One of the great things about consumerist America—the ample profits that come from mass production of decorations for every season! Now, I could go into how buying the fake cobwebs, the barrels of hay and mini to huge pumpkins, that the candle skulls, Frankenstein twinkle lights, the hanging bats and ghosts and the over larged spiders and cardboard tombstones are all another way shops are making a profit over a old pagan holiday. Frankly, I love it too much to really care! There’s something about seeing the little shop windows in downtown Riverside with they displays all spooked-out, and going to the grocery store is exciting when I can see how they’ve put all the diet coke bottles into the shape of a large Frankenstein head. Passing door after door on my neighborhood with pumpkins on the steps, and white ghosts looming over the archways remind me that a holiday is approaching and that I am not alone in celebrating it or being excited for it.
3. Escape from Wonderland
Put on by Insomniac events, Escape from Wonderland, looks like an absolutely mad night of scary thrills, wicked costumes and monster mashin’ (dancing!). This year the bash falls on Saturday October 27th, in San Bernardino and tickets can be bought online.
4. Halloween Movies
From the Disney Channel corny ones, like some of my favorites Halloween Town and Hocus Pocus, to the more terrifying classics Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street, to the gorey ones I still avoid watching Hostel and Saw, to the new releases that haunt us from the big screens Paranomal Activity 4 and Sinister, one of the best things about October is the varying degrees of scary and Halloween cute we get in the form of films. So get in that recliner, grab some orange popcorn and pumpkin sangria and enjoy the fright film fest on a Friday night leading up to Halloween. (Also, can you believe they’re remaking Carrie? Sound off in the comments if you pro-or-nah the remake of this pigs-blood-spilling classic.)
5. Walking Dead
In October, there is nothing else I have heard about or seen people posting about than, The Walking Dead. The show may be about the dead, but the fans are very much alive (puntastic, no?). If you’d like to join the throngs of zombie fans, catch the show on AMC Sundays at 9.
6. Costumes and insanely awesome makeup
One of the best things of Halloween is to dress up as someone or something else There are the insanely outrageous, the slightly slutty and the creative costumes to go around, along with the awesome makeup professionals or extremely talented friends can do. Jessica Mosquedo 3rd year Math Major, has a lot of talent and a good eye for doing fun Halloween makeup as seen below:
What inspired you to do the makeup?
JM: I’ve loved doing makeup since I was around 14, and I had never really done costume makeup and I wanted to see how well I could do it.
What would be some awesome face-makeup paint that you want to do in the future?
JM: There is a picture that I found on the Internet that reminds me of Sally from the nightmare before Christmas and its pretty awesome. I would love to try it on myself or anyone who is willing! Haha
7. Human Roast House (Downtown Riverside)
Downtown Riverside (just across the way from Phood on Main) has put on a new event called, Human Roast House. It’s a haunt attraction that individuals make their way through the home of Austin Reed Trebbe, “a notorious serial killer of the Downtown Riverside Area,” the website warns. If you’re feeling up to entering the abode of a twisted creepy man, tickets are available online or at the door!
8. Pumpkin Patches
This one’s been on the list since I was five years old. As the years go by, the pumpkin patches that were the trenches of a Halloween war I use to pretend they were have slowly disappeared to make way for housing lots, schools, and shopping centers. But the good thing about living in Southern California and this not-so-metropolis city, is that there still remains a few pumpkin patches that warm my heart and smell of fall as you search for a good ole’ pumpkin to carve a fantastic jack o’lantern out of.
This is just a small compiling of what’s to love of the season, what’s your favorite thing to do on Halloween? Special spooky places to go? Like snuggling with a special someone at a scary movie, or head banging at the appropriate Slip Knot concert? Enjoy tee-peeing preteens in their Justin Bieber masks? Tell me what you like, write in the comments below!
Happy Halloween UCR!