The First Halloween at the New Place

We went to the same pumpkin patch as always. They have the best selection of pumpkins.

This is what we got. The big pumpkin with the lacy white, orange, and green pattern is a variety called "One Too Many." I think the orange pumpkin's variety is "Warts Galore," which is wonderful. The three little ones that look like toadstools, with red caps and white bases, are really acorn gourds. They are my favorites.

I got out the costume box to see what had made it over from the old apartment. We both ended up reusing some pieces of old costumes this year.

I wore the chiton (the dark blue robe) that I made for Julie's party the year that I went as Persephone and David went as Tantalus. I think this was our first Halloween together in 2001.

And I also grabbed the himation (the cloak that you wear over one shoulder like a sash) that David is wearing here for his Atlas costume. This was at Julie's party in 2002. I'm dressed as Rumor, because there is a line from the Aeneid describing Rumor as a goddess covered with feathers, ears, eyes, and tongues. Our friend Rebecca is dressed as the Roman empress Agrippina.

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Inspired by the stars on the himation, I decided to go as the Greek moon goddess Selene.

This is a Roman depiction of the moon goddess. You can see that her cloak is supposed to be flowing over her head, but I decided not to attempt that part!

I wore this outfit to work on Halloween. Our department had a party with a costume contest, and I won.

One of my coworkers brought this incredible pumpkin that she had carved with the FSU seal on it. It must have taken her forever.

David decided to reprise his Halloween costume from 2007, which was Gilgamesh.

This year, we made the costume out of a couple of tablecloths and a scarf. Plus the crown and the sword from the original outfit.

I know it doesn't really look like it, but I used this image to make David's costume. It comes from this book, which is the best resource ever for cool historical/mythological costumes.

This is basically the outfit that Gilgamesh is wearing in this cylinder seal from 7th-c. BC Assyria. He's the one on the right killing the Bull of Heaven. His outfit is a tunic with one long shawl wrapped around his waist and another one tucked into his belt, then draped across his shoulder.

I did make a tunic for David's costume, but the outfit ended up looking better without it, so he just has the two shawls, the belt, the crown, and the sword.

David taught his myth class (on Gilgamesh!) wearing this costume. I cataloged books all day with a crescent moon on my head. Then we got ready to go to a Halloween party.

First, we handed out candy at our apartment. The apartment complex had these signs that you could put on your door if you wanted to participate in trick-or-treating. Or "tricker or treating."

We had so much candy! But we only got three kids. They were overjoyed when we told them they could help themselves to the candy tray. Later that night, when we were on our way to a Halloween party, we found out where all the trick-or-treaters had gone. We drove through this street near our apartment complex that was crowded with people trick-or-treating. All of the houses and yards were decorated, and hordes of kids were riding around in trucks and jeeps, which would stop in the middle of the street in front of each house. It was sheer chaos, like Mad Max if it starred a million tiny children dressed like Elsa. I've never seen anything like it.

David and I went to our friends' Halloween party. They have a really cool house on Lake Jackson, surrounded by gigantic live oaks. Their Halloween decorations were beautiful.

What We Wore Today

We finished David's Halloween costume just in time. He was the Norse god Odin.

Odin has two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who whisper in his ears information about everything that happens in the world. We attached the ravens to a cardboard collar that David wore under the cloak. It tied in front, and the cloak was cut so that the ravens could be on David's shoulders.

 It was one of my favorite costumes that I've ever put together.

My outfit was inspired by witches. If I had added a witch's hat, it would have been a costume. But as it is, I would wear this outfit any day of the year, so I don't think you can call it a costume.

I also wore thematic jewelry.

Malinda went as a Halloween cat.

A Halloween Poem

Haunted Houses

All houses wherein men have lived and died

Are haunted houses. Through the open doors

The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,

With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,

Along the passages they come and go,

Impalpable impressions on the air,

A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts

Invited; the illuminated hall

Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,

As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see

The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;

He but perceives what is; while unto me

All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deed to house or lands;

Owners and occupants of earlier dates

From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,

And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense

Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere

Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense

A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise

By opposite attractions and desires;

The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,

And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar

Of earthly wants and aspirations high,

Come from the influence of an unseen star

An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud

Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,

Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd

Into the realm of mystery and night --

So from the world of spirits there descends

A bridge of light, connecting it with this,

O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,

Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(Potentially haunted places: 1. the Brokaw-McDougall House in Tallahassee, 2. Mission San Luis in Tallahassee, 3. Old house in Dawson City, Alaska, 4. Old City Cemetery in Tallahassee,  5. Cemetery in Micanopy, Florida, 6. Parking lot of an apartment complex in Bloomington, Indiana, 7. St. George Island, Florida.)

Halloween Retrospective

It's hard for me to believe, but David and I have been celebrating Halloween together for a decade now. This picture is from the first time we dressed up for Halloween together, in 2002. We're at a classics party at our friend Julie's house. I'm dressed as Persephone, and David is Tantalus.

These are the first Halloween pictures I ever put on the blog, from 2006. That year we just had one little pumpkin (which I ate on November 1). We decorated our door with spiderwebs, but we didn't get any trick-or-treaters.

 Halloween 2007 was our first one in Florida. We brought our spiders and spiderwebs with us from Indiana. It was the first year that David started the tradition of dressing as a mythological character to teach his myth class on Halloween. That year, he went as Gilgamesh.

In 2008, neither of us taught a myth class on Halloween, so we didn't dress up. But we did get this cool fairytale pumpkin for our doorstep.

2008 was the year that we began our tradition of decorating with tiny white pumpkins (top left picture). We added different things to the tiny-pumpkin display every year: a sphinx in 2009, a sweet dumpling squash in 2010, a teapot and a little black cat in 2011.

 In 2010, we went to a classics Halloween party dressed as Aquaman and Ursula. (The theme was "Heroes and Villains.")

 In 2011, we taught our myth classes in costume. David was Heracles, and I was the Hittite god Ubelluri.

This year, David is going to dress up for his myth class again, but we're still working on the costume. I couldn't find tiny pumpkins this year! But we did get some really great pumpkins.

I think that Halloween 2012 is going to be amazing.

Our Mythic Halloween

This year David and I each taught an ancient myth class on Halloween, so we decided to dress as characters from myths. David was Heracles.

He wore a lion's skin and carried a club, just like Heracles in this vase painting.

Except that I made David's lion skin out of felt and fake fur.

But it looked realistic enough that he won first prize at the department Halloween party!

I taught my classes on Halloween dressed as the Hittite god Ubelurri.

I used this Hittite relief sculpture, which shows the storm god, as inspiration for my horned helmet, kilt, and beard. Ubelluri is a different god, though: he's the one who stands under the sea bed and holds up the sky, like Atlas in Greek mythology.

Another god, Kumarbi, has a child that is made of stone, called Ullikummi, and Kumarbi hides Ullikummi on Ubelluri's shoulder. Ullikummi is growing bigger and bigger, and he is about to invade the heavens and overthrow the king of the gods, but the gods can't seem to dislodge him from Ubelluri's shoulder. I had the opposite problem. But my class still knew who I was supposed to be!

My Day of the Dead

I'd been wanting to visit Tallahassee's oldest graveyard, Old City Cemetery, for a while, and I decided that Halloween afternoon would be a good time to pay my respect to Tallahassee's historic past.

It's eleven acres, which makes for a satisfying walk winding in and out of the rows of tombstones. I saw the earliest grave -- a tourist who, according to his marker, was visiting Florida for his health, and was subsequently buried here in 1829. Union and Confederate soldiers are buried in this cemetery, along with Tallahassee society ladies, African-American civic leaders, and a slew of yellow fever victims from an outbreak in 1841.

My favorites were the weird and fanciful Gilded Age monuments.

The raised coffins are designed for a swampy Florida landscape.

As the sun started to set and the shadows grew longer, the cemetery got creepier. I wished I hadn't been reading that book of Gothic tales.

The pamphlet I picked up -- "A Walking Tour of Old City Cemetery" -- assured me that there is no resident ghost.

But there is a witch, and this is where she is buried.

The pamphlet denies it, but says that the rumors about Elizabeth Budd Graham won't die. It occurred to me that Halloween might not have been the best time to visit the cemetery after all.

Yes, definitely time to leave.