Scary Claws and Other Awesome Traditions: Did You Know?

You may already be aware that Scary Claws visits our house every October Eve (September 30th, folks) and leaves us frightening decorations and wonderful props for our costume room. It's because we're so wicked, and he only leaves presents for bad girls and boys. Sometimes, when we're excellent examples of the Halloween Spirit, Scary Claws visits us every night for the 13 nights before Halloween, too.

You may also know that every year we gather with the Nielsons for the Crazy Halloween Dinner, where nothing on the menu appears as it should and that we have an unspoken rule to never repeat a costume.

Did you also know that another tradition we have is carving apples? Well, you'd better believe it, because it's the honest truth, and it's been around for nearly two decades. Observe:

There are lots of pros to carving apples instead of pumpkins.

• First, you don't have to work hard to get the guts out only to work hard to carve the dang thing.
• Second, apples are smaller than pumpkins, which means less work in the long run.
• Third, if you mess up on your masterpiece, an apple is cheaper to replace than a pumpkin.
• Fourth, the cleanup from apple sculpting is minimal compared to the juicy newspaper mess that results in pumpkin carving.
• And fifth, apple sculptures increase in awesomeness the longer they sit out to dry.

In fact, that's the whole purpose of carving apples: to see how decrepit your sculpture becomes after a few days of windowsill dry-time. What Halloween traditions does your family have?