• My boys having fun trick-or-treating (dressed as a policeman and Indiana Jones).
• Putting on a green monster mask and freaking out kids at my door.
• Twittering with folks around the country about Halloween.
• Carving pumpkins, my wife does a great job!
• Baking pumpkin seeds, but burning half of them. #fail, LOL
• Making my Halloween 2010 Flickr album.
• Going to a totally decked out Halloween store with the family.
• My wife dressed as a black cat! I like.

You know you’re from Michigan when…

• You find 32 degrees “a little chilly.”
• You drink pop and bake with soda.
• You know what a “Yooper” is.
• You go to Canada on your 19th birthday.
• You think owning a Toyota is un-American.
• “Vacation” means going up north on I-75. You measure distance in hours.
• You can drive 65 mph through a feet of snow during a raging blizzard,
  without flinching.
• You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
• You know it’s possible to live in “the thumb”.

Some Halloween History

• Many experts believe the druids were the first to observe Halloween. Dating back to 700 B.C., they celebrated the festival of Samhain (the end of the harvest and a time to honor the dead) on November 1. In the ensuing years, the night before became known as the Eve of All Hallows, a.k.a. Hallow Even, a.k.a. Hallow e’en.
• Ever wonder how trick-or-treating got started? On the evening before Samhain, people left food on their doorsteps to keep hungry spirits from entering the house. Festival-goers started dressing in ghost, witch, and goblin costumes so wandering spirits would leave them alone. To this day, these are Halloween’s most popular costumes.
• The word witch comes from the Saxon word “wicca”, which means “wise one.”

Spooky Animals

• Black cats, those customary Halloween icons, were originally believed to be witches’ familiars, a kind of cosmic sidekick who protected the witches’ powers from negative forces.
• Some so-called vampire bats do drink blood, but they’re not from Transylvania. They live in Central and South America and feed on cattle, horses, and birds.

Pumpkins and…Turnips?

• The biggest pumpkin in the world tipped the scales at a whopping 1,337.6 pounds. This gigantic gourd was weighed in October, 2002 at a pumpkin festival in Topsfield, Mass.
• Of all canned fruits and vegetables, pumpkin is the best source of vitamin A. Just a half-cup of the orange stuff has more than three times the recommended daily requirement.
• The very first jack o’ lantern was made out of a turnip.