Heather Christena Schmidt

There are exactly two weeks left until Halloween. That can mean one thing and one thing only for this lady: Halloween indulgences.

So Halloween is the kick start of the holiday season, it seems. After that it’s like a landslide to New Years. But the one thing that’s different for me than most other people is that it’s the only part of the holiday season that I allow myself indulgences.

I’m not a real holiday person. In fact, I hate the holidays. The family breathing down your neck, making requests of you left and right. The increases in the social calendar obligations. The money. The gratuitous gift giving. Having to clean around the decorations. All the food in excess. The money. The money. The money. And more than anything: the holiday blues. I get them every year and despite my urge to have a Prozac shake every morning until the New Year, I usually just mope my way through it.So Thanksgiving doesn’t see 3,000+ calories for me; in fact, I usually eat salad. Christmas cookies and candy and other assorted food-coma items are not something I partake in often either – I’m not the biggest fan of desserts most of the time.

You faithful blog followers are all probably envisioning that when I say “Halloween indulgences” I’m sitting around, shoveling miniature-sized Three Musketeers bars down my throat, while I pour Pixie Stix in my mouth, like a princess adorned with all the candy jewelry Candyland has to offer.

Sadly, this is just not the case. It would be funny, but like I said: I’m not really into desserty-type stuff most of the time.

Halloween Indulgence 1: New Halloween Decorations

I like Halloween decorations. I don’t mean the ones that are all blood and gore and crap. I also don’t mean overly elaborate ones. I like simple, but cute Halloween decorations that remind me of being a little kid again. Especially The Peanuts Halloween stuff – they just get me every time.

So I buy new Halloween decorations every year. I don’t mean that I throw out the old and bring in the new, I just add to my collection. Fortunately, since I don’t buy that much (maybe one or two things per year), we still don’t have that much. Some indoor skeleton lights. A couple grave stones. Cobwebs. A blue skeleton head. Those types of things. This year I bought an adorable mummy candle holder.

Halloween Indulgence 2: Making Homemade Costumes As An Excuse To …

… sit on my ass. Spend less money on costumes. Control what the costume is going to be. Sit on my ass some more. Go to my knitting/crafting group. Did I mention sit on my ass?

Making homemade Halloween costumes requires that I be in place and left alone for periods of time that I don’t usually get to be in place and left alone. “If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll never get your Halloween costume done!” is the primary reason why I start costumes in July.

Halloween Indulgence 3: Pumpkins and Gourds and Shit

It might be because so many gourds are phallic. It might also be because they are a cheap and easy way to decorate. Yesterday we went to the local pumpkin patch and I bought about forty pumpkins and assorted gourds and corn cobs for $30. Being a shopaholic that is on the way into the holiday blues (often temporarily cured with shopping), this is awesome. I can spend hours drowning my sorrows sifting through bins of shit that looks like a penis without breaking the bank, like clothes or shoe-shopping would.

Seems like a total win to me.

Halloween Indulgence 4: Cheesy Halloween TV Shows and Movies

When I was in high school, my dad and I would watch Mystery Science Theatre 3000 all the time. Since then (we’re talking for about fifteen years, now) I always poke fun at movies while watching them.

Cheesy Halloween TV Shows and Movies are the best for this. Last night I forced everyone to watch The Brain That Wouldn’t Die – a movie from the early 60s about a crazy doctor who gets into a car accident and tries to preserve his fiance’s head while he finds a body to attach it to. Sadly, my husband doesn’t appreciate my humor such as he should, so it usually ends in me sitting and cracking jokes to myself.

Halloween Indulgence 5: Boney With His Massive Invisible Boner

A while back, I introduced you all to Boney with his massive invisible boner. I’m not entirely sure how I came up with this concept. I mean, it’s just a plastic skeleton that I got at Michael’s a few years ago for $10. And despite my previous comment about sifting through a bin of phallic gourds, my mind is rarely anywhere near the gutter (I mean, my idea of sexytime is reading a book in sweatpants).

Nonetheless, Boney with his massive invisible boner becomes my mascot from the time he comes out of storage until November 1st every year.

Halloween Indulgence 6: Dressing Up My Animals

No, I do not mean Pookies or husband. I mean my actual animals.

Before my dog Watson died a few years ago, he got stuck playing dress up. Now that he is gone, I dress up the guinea pig, Agamemnon.

But I don’t just dress him up. I dress him up time after time, and have fashion shows with him in the living room. In the living room covered with penis-shaped gourds, with Boney and his massive invisible boner as the audience. Nothing weird about this at all, right? I make him some popcorn, set up a little runway, and turn up the Right Said Fred “I’m Too Sexy.” It’s very bizarre and I’m pretty sure he hates me at this point; although, he does seem to like it once in a while.

I’ll leave you with the most recent of the guinea pig fashion shows.