Halloween Discussion Forums, Costumes, Horror!

Re your real tree: you are going to LOVE the way it smells. That's what I miss most about a real tree. When I had my one preferred fake tree, I used to use an evergreen scented Glade plug-in behind it to create the illusion that the tree had a scent.

Our Kroger is selling table top trees, real ...

Oh, that's a great one! Season 6? I think. Frasier always had such superb holiday episodes. Their Valentine's and Halloween episodes were also brilliant.

I'm a fan of the new All Creatures Great and Small. It's very cozy, so it might or might not be to your taste. But it's well done, and each ...

I'll have to give this some thought. But one thing I do remember from the 60s and 70s is the many Christmas specials we used to see back then. Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Andy Williams used to have them every year. So did Lawrence Welk. The Carpenters did two or three in the 70s. These were all ...

My mother told me that her family used to go to the woods to get a tree. They also decorated it with candles when she was a child. She said that when you have a candlelit tree, it gets lit only once. But she said there was nothing quite so magical as a tree lit with candles.

I've felt that way about some of my posts, too. But I've also had a hobby for maybe 20 years of writing down everything I can remember of the family stories my mother and others told me. I think the names on a family tree mean a lot more when people know something about the ones who bore those names ...

Oh, I was adamant for many years that I would have only a real tree. However, I've had a fake one now for decades.

When we were newlyweds living in Killeen, TX, the real trees went on sale before Thanksgiving, but my husband refused to buy one. He has a thing about not celebrating Christmas before ...

Andy, I'm so sorry to learn that you, too, apparently suffered a traumatic childhood. I guess the worst thing that happened during my childhood was my father's death. It meant not only that I didn't get to know him in the way I would have wished, but also that my mother and I sank financially and ...

When my first child was a toddler, if I tried to spank him, he would hit me back. And I thought, Do I really want to raise a child who won't hit back when someone strikes him? And I decided I didn't want that. So I stopped trying to spank him. I decided I would do that only if I saw him doing ...

HH, I feel like apologizing to you if I said something that triggered all those terrible memories. But you say that in some way you feel unburdened by talking about it, so I hope it really did help. I cannot imagine living through that level of abuse, either as a child or a wife. My heart goes out ...

As usual, we did a little decluttering, but not enough. I don't know why that beast is so hard to tame. However, we did have a nice Thanksgiving break. Re the.decluttering, I'm hoping slow and steady wins the race.

Well, that's a fascinating analysis of your two girls. I think most people carry around some anger inside. The main issue is learning to channel it in ways that don't hurt innocent people. Your smashing up the car in the junkyard was a good release, and Phoebe's sports can be, too, as long as she ...

Gorgeous turkey!

It's lovely to share the holiday with extended family, but in some ways I'm happy that our holiday is nuclear. Everything is simpler for us. When my husband and I were first married, he was in the Army, and we were never free to travel at the holidays. The higher ranking officers ...

Andy, I love seeing your decorations every year, for every season!

Happy Thanksgiving to you both, and to anyone else reading here! My husband has the whole week off from school, which is pleasant for all of us. In addition to the feasting, he and I want to continue decluttering and organizing the ...

I have a theory that "love at first sight" is more common for men than for women. I can't say it never happens for women, but I think most women are just more cautious than that, because they risk more. I mean, men risk their hearts, which isn't nothing. But women potentially risk their lives and ...

My husband always says that he was aware of me at the auditions that Thursday, and that, when I showed up in the choir at the first rehearsal and was picking up my music, he turned to his friend in the tenor section and said, "That's the woman I'm going to marry." I didn't know this until some time ...