Krampusnacht

Just when you thought Halloween was over -- Krampusnacht is here!

The Krampus is an entity celebrated in central Europe (though primarily in Austria) who comes around on December 5th as a minion of Santa to torment children who have been naughty for the last year.

Read more about Krampusnacht.





On Krampusnacht young men dress up as the Krampus, creating their own wooden masks and costumes. They then rampage the streets with switches and chains, terrifying observers.




Pretty impressive, right? Who knew Christmas could be so sinister...

Happy Anniversary!

Hubby and I celebrated our One Year Anniversary at Rosa Mexicano. The decor was excellent and the food was delicious!

Halloween Mail

Today I had so SO MUCH fantastic Halloween mail waiting for me. Not one, but TWO packages. They were sent, independently, from two of my favorite people: my sister, and my aunt.

Package One
Package One was sent by my sister. It actually arrived yesterday, but it was delivered to the office because it was TOO BIG to fit in my mailbox.

Thick, squishy envelope -- I wonder what's in it?

Locksley was super interested in what was in this package. He insisted on being involved in the opening process.

'scuse me, dog!

Inside the package was an envelope and four smaller packages wrapped in excellent halloween-themed tissue paper!

What an adorable group!

Inside each tissue-papered treasure were treats! Since my sister didn't think she'd be getting any trick-or-treaters, she thought she'd give treats to her favorite "kids";) Super cute!

Yum!!

I can't wait to try them all! Some highlights: "cat butt" gum, pumpkin truffles, candy corn saltwater taffy, and sour pumpkins.

Locksley says, "I know these aren't dog treats, but can I have some anyway?" Nope, sorry dog!

Thank you, dear sister!

Package Two
Package Two was sent by my aunt. Earlier this month she had sent a card to my dog for Halloween so I was DELIGHTED to get my own autumnal salutation. Her envelopes are always easily identifiable in the mail. Bright ORANGE! And a great E.A.Poe stamp.

I should note that this envelope was ENCASED in packaging tape. It was great fun getting in to. Although it might look like it, Locksley did NOT help.

Riiiiip!

Inside was a Haunt House Halloween card, WITH STICKERS!

And a mysterious bubble-wrapped package.

...biodegradable bubble-wrap.

Inside the bubble-wrap was a CD of custom-made tunes, perfect for the autumn activity of exploring graveyards.

Complete with headstone cover art.

I can't wait to give it a listen! Since I don't know of any good, old cemeteries in this area to visit I will listen to it while going to visit the horses in New Windsor instead.

Great CD color, too, don't you think?

Thank you, dear aunt!

Jack-o-Lanterns

We made jack-o-lanterns! A bat, a wolf, and (because I'm a giant nerd) the Alley Cat Allies logo. I brought the logo pumpkin to work and the President of the organization took it home :)

Primed for Halloween

Dorsia is not a fan

We have a Halloween household, but apparently not everyone is on the same page. To bring a little Halloween cheer, I got a small pumpkin to put in Dorsia's cage.

Cute, right?

If you've ever known a bird you realize they're not super thrilled with novel objects in their cage. They usually snub them for a while before getting anywhere near it. Dorsia snubbed her rope toy for days and day and now it's practically her boyfriend.

This was Dorsia's reaction to the pumpkin:

Hello up there!

She flew out of her cage and on to the deer skull hanging above the porch door. She's since been back in the cage, and while she isn't interested in the pumpkins she's not scared of it either. Maybe in a couple days?

I could take this to mean that Dorsia hates Halloween but I am heartened by the fact that she landed on the skull. That's pretty Halloween, right? She did look rather nice on it. In fact, I half expected her to croak "Nevermore" while she was up there.

Hocus Pocus Night

This evening a few friends and I had a Hocus Pocus Night. Think of it as a Halloween pre-game. It all came about because we were reminiscing about a childhood Halloween movie favorite: Hocus Pocus.

We decided on my house for the venue (it looks like Halloween year-round I'm told) and we quickly whipped up some extra decorations from the Halloween storage bin, and concocted some delicious Halloween dinner.



Locksley helped decorate.



The table was set!



Dinner included: roasted pumpkin and shallots, wild rice, pumpernickle bread with goat cheese, spinach salad with pumpkin seed oil and apple cider vinegar dressing.



And wine, of course. Plus pumpkin beer and hard cider.



And for desert: spice cake with buttercream frosting.

The company was excellent, the food was delicious, the mood was seasonal and the movie was everything I remembered it to be.

Halloween Treats

Ladies the gentlemen, the latest Halloween treats, picked up by yours truly.

From Target (though they did not have the majority of their Halloween stuff out yet):

Chocolate candy bar. Dark chocolate made by Bloomsberry. Really delicious, velvety, cocoa tasting! A cackling good ride? I'm sold!

Pumpkin Pie flavored Poptarts. Delicious right out of the box, with festively colored sprinkles, but to DIE for when toasted. Mmm.. warm pumpkin pie.

You didn't think I'd forget Locksley did you you?

From Petsmart:

The purple set of medium sized Halloween Toy Assortment. Includes a tennis ball, two small rope toys, a vinyl bone, and a sturdy bat chew toy.

That's all for now!

They knew how to be creepy

Addiction + Addiction = Blog Post

We've established that I'm a Halloween junkie. It's also pretty well documented that I'm a nerd for pet-related things. Put the two addictions together, and it's a whole obsession in itself.

I swore I wouldn't get anything before October, but I didn't want to risk something being SOLD OUT. So I caved.

I visited not one, but TWO Petsmarts today to check out their Halloween swag. One shop had an abbreviated selected, but the other was pretty well stocked. I have to say, I'm pretty proud of my restraint. I only purchased one item there today. But I have to admit the restraint was fueled a bit by being overwhelmed by selection. So many great toys! I have to space out the Halloween bounty.

I came away with this:


Dog treats! They had another variety where instead of bat cookies they had pumpkin cookies, but these were my favorite. The ingredients are all natural. The cashier at check out admitted that the manager had them try one of these cookies and they were palatable, though not at all sugary like a human cookie.

The surprise find of the day, though, was at Old Navy. We stopped in on a whim and I--like a blood hound--sniffed out their Halloween products promptly. Imagine my delight when I found these:


Sort of a holy grail. Halloween pet toys, cute design, that glow-in-the-dark. Jackpot! The plush skeleton guy is too cute, and the bone glows entirely and has BATS on it. It's like they read my mind.

A side note: I have a dog and a bird. I've always loved the wonderous variety of toys and THINGS for dogs, but I've always wondered why birds and small mammals get the shaft. Where are the Halloween bird toys? The Trick-Or-Treat foodstuffs? Get on it, pet product producers of the world!

Of course, as I was treating my pets, I treated myself. Starbucks now has available their autumnal offerings. I had a tall Pumpkin Spice Latte today -- the first of the season. I also picked up an autumn designed travel mug.


I had held off getting one for ages because I knew Starbucks would come up with something cute and autumny and I wasn't disappointed. YOINK.

I (heart) Halloween

I'll admit it. It's a little ridiculous that I start thinking about Halloween in July. But to be fair, I have to SUPPRESS thinking about Halloween until then. And to my credit I try not to talk TOO much about Halloween until September.

I love Halloween and that's all there is to it.

One of my favorite games is checking to see who puts their Halloween stuff out first.

The winner since I started playing this game has always been Michael's Arts and Crafts. They usually put their stuff out right after the 4th of July. To tide myself over I get something AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

This year I came out with a grow-a-creature (black cat and ghost).

The runner up this year was Bath and Body Works. They have a whole line of Halloween and Autumn inspired scents. I'm still sad they no longer carry the 3 in 1 Pumpkin Pie product. But their other pumpkin-smelly stuff are pretty good.

To reward them, I had to buy something, of course.

Halloween themed hand sanitizer. Comes in five scents!

Petsmart is pretty prompt with their Halloween items, but it takes a while to get it all out there. Target is the real torture. They almost always have GREAT stuff, and they are almost always the LAST place to put stuff out.

Of course watching the influx of items is pretty fun, too. Visiting CVS and Rite Aide and other convenience-type stores and watching their seasonal aisle grow is a treat. This weekend I HAD to snag these:

Whitman's Chocolate Sampler - Halloween Cat.

Pez's Glow-In-The-Dark Halloween Bat Dispenser

I love the the Cat design on the chocolate assortment. There were other packaging designs, but the black cat in the witches's hat and the skull collar was too cute.

The Pez dispenser was a must have. I'm a sucker for anything glow-in-the-dark and I'm a big fan of bats. I was especially delighted by the detail of the bat head.

I can't wait for more things to hit the shelves.

Sam + June Halloween Wedding 2009

Thanks to everyone that took these snap shots (and all the others!)

Hallo-wine (and other tastey beverages)

Another assembly of descriptions and images to make you hungry/thirsty and make you eyeball aesthetics happy.

Gotham Wine
Something I've actually sampled! I bought it for the bottle (of course) but this actually a pretty delicious wine. We tried the Shiraz which has been rated the best Australian wine under $10.

Vampire Wine
For the name - I've never tasted this. The bottle is neat, right? The website is kind of hilarious ("Rumor has it that the Vampire Vineyards are actually owned by a circle of vampire" hee..) Also, how did they bag vampire.com for a domain name? Hm. I guess I'm not talking about wine... oops.

Night of the Living Red
This is more of a concept wine if you ask me - it really doesn't matter what it tastes like. The bottle is minimalist, but comes with a wickedly designed label that consists of some pretty excellent anatomical drawings and redacted information. Mysterious!

Trick? Treat?

It's the semi-annual gourmet Halloween Candy nom blog!
Here are some delicious selection I stumbled cross while being unscrupulous on the internet:

Chocolate Skulls
Last year I noted the chocolate skulls by Vosges Chocolate and they were pretty good but I MUCH prefer their exotic chocolate bar. These skulls are classic flavors with lots of spooky (and anatomical!) detail.

Pumpkin Patch Truffles
Creamy pumpkin spice something-or-other in chocolate. Delicious, and deliciously packaged. These I have actually eaten so I can attest to the tastiness.

Garlic Mints
GROSS right? But you can't deny how terribly clever this is - what better way to ward off vampires (if that's your thing of course). And the tin is nicely designed.

Trick or Treat Halloween Box
Seriously - listen to these flavors: anise buttercream, spiced pumpkin see toffee, persimmon pumpkin truffle. They sound (and look) delicious.

Vellies
My favorite thing about these: the colors. My second favorite thing: they're vegetarian. Better than either of those things: the ingredients - fennel, red peppers, sage, beets, more! Plus, it's fun to say. Vellies vellies vellies!

Peanut Butter and Honey Skull Truffle
I mostly love the packaging - long slender brown box, with a paper wrap of SKULLS. And I like the skulls printed on the chocolate. If you like chewie, this would probably be yum.

That's it! Before I start chewing on my screen.