Purrs and howdys, Kittens & Dawgs! For the next three weeks, I plan to bring to you Halloween memories from my childhood in my Throw Back Thursday series. Today, I’m reminiscing of masks, treat bags, candy, and more!

Halloween is wildly popular with adults more so than I remember it ever being as a kid. I liked dressing up when my folks could afford it but usually all we got was a plastic mask and that was pretty darn neat!

Here’s just a few…

BAT GIRL

I think my best friend wore one like this.

CLEOPATRA

I was Queen of the Nile one year and I not only had the mask but an inexpensive costume. I was so excited to wear a real costume, maybe too excited because I ran out the front door and tripped into a big mud puddle. Soaked to the bone, I returned home to change clothes. I was miserable for messing up my new costume and the cold, wet weather made things worse. I really wanted to wear the complete outfit because it was my first time to have a nifty costume. In the end, I had a lot of fun and getting lots of candy made me feel better. 🙂

GYPSY PRINCESS

Another year, I was a Gypsy but nohave a costume. Seeing this mask reminds me of the vintage classic, “The Wolf Man”. I plan to talk about that in another installment. 😉

To collect the hordes of candy, most of the time we used a paper bag to hold our candy loot. I almost remember us decorating our paper bags like this, except I don’t think my jack-o-lantern ever wore a patch.

Sometimes, I used a small plastic pumpkin shaped Halloween bucket sorta like one below. This is what we got our children.

DH said he used an orange heavy-duty plastic bag and believe it or not, we have his “trick or treat” bag some where in this house. All three of the kids used it at one point. I think it’s awesome that they were able to use some of the things from DH’s boyhood.

Most of our Halloween stash consisted of “penny candy” along with a few pieces of chocolate or bubblegum.

However, if we were really lucky sometimes the women in our community would go the extra mile to give us home-made popcorn ball or candy or caramel apples. Now, that was a real treat!

A fun thing we liked to buy just days before Halloween was candy waxed lips especially the fang version.

Candy implies you can eat it but these waxed lips weren’t disgestible. The best we could do was chew on the flavored wax like gum until our jaw couldn’t take it anymore. It seems like such a waste now but it was part of a fun childhood experience and one I wouldn’t give up.

I found a fun Halloween playlist of 50s and 60s tunes on YouTube, many made before I was born but know very well today and some released during my youth. So, I will sign off for now with a bit of mewsic.