Happy Halloween, dear reader!  That’s it…I just decided…Halloween is now the official start of the New Year on the Gallaway calendar.  Now I must come up with an official traditional celebration of this holiday.  The reasons for this are myriad but make total sense to me.

And by making my New Year on the last day of the month, we can dedicate an entire day and night to celebrating with reckless abandon, then wake up on the first of the new month, ready to get to work on This Year’s Project(s).  Brilliant.

Our traditional celebration will have nothing to do with trick-or-treating.  Sure, I was into it as a kid, but now trick-or-treaters just annoy me.  I could do without that particular tradition.  But I’m into costumes one day/night a year, so costumes will likely be part of it.  And liquor, of course.  I don’t know…I’m going to have to flesh this out.  I’ll get back to you as developments warrant.

Did you ever decide what you’re going as?  I might have mentioned mine was a toss-up between Art the Clown and The Mad Hatter.  Yesterday I decided I’d just be Garbage.  It was just the easiest option.   I thought I was being original, but everybody that’s come to the door so far has also been Garbage.  Weird.

Anyway, something for you better than candy: 10 of my favorite books/stories to read around this time of year (in no particular order):

1. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving
2. “Dracula” by Bram Stoker
3. “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley
4. “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson
5. “Something Wicked This Way Comes” – Ray Bradbury
6. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe
7. “The Shining” by Stephen King
8. “Ghost Story” by Peter Straub
9. “The Witches” by Roald Dahl
10. “MacBeth” by William Shakespeare

N.P.: “Grim, Grinning Ghosts” – Ghosts