Hello fall! Is it your favorite month too? Over here we’re diving into Pumpkin Spice everything and picking apples in cozy fall sweaters and loving every flannel minute of it! You take one look around at nature’s colors and you’re instantly in a good mood – fall is like that! 

And, as if this season isn’t leaf-crunching fun enough, we’ve got Halloween with yummy treats, parties, and the chance to get dressed up as anything our imagination desires like a scary witch or sexy cat… meow. Speaking of cats most pets will be part of fun too with almost 75% of pet parents planning to dress up their pets for Halloween. 

And, the treats! These aren’t your mother’s treats of Halloweens past, a quick look at Google trends for Halloween recipes this week revealed people are looking for…

• Dirt Pudding
• Halloween Cinnamon rolls
• Mummy dogs
• Halloween Rice Krispies
• Candy apples

Spooky cocktails are also trending on Google and people have been searching for recipes to make Witches Brew, Brain Hemorrhage Shot, Beetlejuice and Black Magic Margaritas.

Since this is the spooky season, it’s worth mentioning clowns, snakes, and spiders. If those send a shiver down your spine then you might be reading this blog from Montana or Rhode Island. Healthyminded.co took 24 of the biggest fears and phobias and mapped them by state (check the map to find out what fear looms largest in your home state). The most surprising finding? Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri reported a fear of Love (yes, it’s a real thing)! In case you’re wondering, Samhainophobia is a fear of Halloween and that’s as real as hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia which is a fear of long words (cue sound of head dropping on desk)! 

Just as scary were the Halloween pranks played in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. In those days, kids had time on their hands instead of cell phones and Halloween mayhem ensued. Ropes were strung across sidewalks in the dark, dummies were left on trolley tracks, windows were soaped and unlucky souls had flour thrown in their faces when answering a knock on the door. But sometimes Halloween pranks would get out of control as one teenager found in 1994 when he decided to egg a local electric company substation one rainy Halloween night. The combination of egg splatter and rain unwittingly caused the 34,000 watt transformers to arc causing a fireball and knocking out power to 8,000 residents of a small Pennsylvania town!

Enough of that scary stuff, let’s talk candy! What is Halloween without it after all? According to ApartmentTherapy.com, Americans throw away about $400 million worth of uneaten sweets from trick-or-treating. The simple fix for this pile of food waste is to know what candy kids (or parents) love!  Thankfully, we can jump over to candystore.com for their annual update and interactive map showing the three most popular Halloween candies state-by-state. Even though Reese’s Cups are a national favorite, Hot Tamales make a top spot in a few places (we see you Virginia, Minnesota, and North Dakota) and surprisingly Saltwater Taffy shows up too!  Remember, we are giving you fair warning  that you don’t want to be filling your candy bowl with Good & Plenty or Circus Peanuts (unless they are your states faves) or you’ll wake up on November 1 with plenty of TP decorating your trees!

Speaking of decorating, have you bought your pumpkin yet?  There are so many ways to decorate, and we have selected a few of our favorites. 

If you bought too many pumpkins this Halloween don’t let them go to waste, there’s always pumpkin pie or puree some and use for your next facial… pumpkin is great topically for hydrating, firming and protecting the skin. 

Wow, that was a lot fun and got us in the mood to eat, drink and be scary!  We’ll see you in the next blog when we will have something very exciting to announce so until then… we WITCH you a happy Halloween!

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Deb Fries works with the Julianna Rae team to offer the best shopping experience for quality silk and cotton sleepwear while also writing for the blog at Juliannarae.com.