31 October ideas for postcards messages

It is either October or you have the October energies coursing through your bones and spirit.

Hopefully it is twilight or darker, maybe with a bit of rain? Or a chilling wind, behest with owls and creaking branches? Hrm... that's the stuff. That's the good stuff.

Let's start writing!

Halloween postcard sent to a friend, part of a larger bit of mail art.

Memories, the past, traditions, themes

1. Autumn? October? Halloween? Do you differentiate? If so, are there layers, do you have special activities for one over another? Do you focus on a selection?
2. A favorite Halloween memory. A party, a trick-or-treat. Something you have done and want to talk about, you want to relive or share. What was the temperature, what was the weather? Do you remember the year? Do you remember the feeling? This doesn't have to be the absolute favorite, just a favorite. First that comes to mind!
3. Describe a costume you wore. Something big and complex, something simple and modest. Something you made, something you bought off-the-shelf. Something you rummaged together out of the debris in your closet.
4. Do you have any special traditions? I watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown when I carve the year's first pumpkin.
5. Scary (horror) or spooky (thrilling)? Sexy or homespun? Silly or serious? Body horror or cartoonish? Outlandish and extensive or handcrafted with paper and pipe cleaners? Convert any and all "ors" into "ands" if you like.
6. Party or stay-at-home with movies, a book? What are you doing this year? What do you normally do? What is the perfect day, evening?

Books, movies, music, television

7. What's on your October bookshelf? I read The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury for the first time in... I want to say 2012 or so. I re-read it every October!
8. General marathons? Treehouse of Horrors play regularly in the studio, as does a collection of Bob's Burgers Halloween episodes. I recently purchased the Beetlejuice cartoon and it is going into the rotation this year.
9. Themed marathons? I make a playlist of The Headless Horseman of Halloween from The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour (season 1, episode 5), Sleepy Hollow (dir. Tim Burton, 1999), and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Disney, 1949).
10. What is on your music playlist? Traditional like Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor? Seasonal classics such as Bobby Pickett's Monster Mash? Something a bit less well known, Toto Coelo's Dracula's Tango (Sucker For Your Love)?
11. Favorite obscure classic? Something most people have never heard of. Recommendation from the deep cut list, something probably new-to-the postcard's recipient that you know too much about.
12. Favorite popular thing? Something everyone has heard of. Over the Garden Wall is an immense hit for a reason and I'm never tired of talking about it.
13. Not obscure, not popular, but a secret third layer. Night of the Comet (1984) is my go-to. Teenagers fight zombies in a mall.

This season, please keep Lemon Peel in your thoughts. Not because he is lacking candy (he isn't), but because he is cute and adorable.

Give me the creeps, the crawls

14. Rank monsters. Vampires or ghosts, zombies or werewolves. Do you play favorites?
15. Aliens, and robots, and pirates, oh my! Are you more classical monster or "select all, add to crypt" creep? Do you mix and match? Killer vampire robots, space witches, astral mermaid demons?
16. Rank party activities. Haunted house, spooky hayride, ghost story contest, bobbing for apples, good ol' trick-or-treating.
17. Rank cozy activities. Video games, board games, reading, movies or television. Best way to spend all day?
18. Halloween commercials. Evocative immersion? I love older commercials with cheesy practical effects. Corporate overlords skulking into spaces they do not belong in?

Pumpkin bread on a seasonally appropriate plate by jack-o-lantern light is a special delight.

Tricks 'n treats

19. Apple cinnamon? Pumpkin spice? Both? Something else? Neither?
20. Witch's brew. Let's talk about ingredients. What would you put in it? Is it a spell cast, a potion to drink, a poison? Why not all? Fantasy-inspired, real life concoction, why not both?
21. What is in your seasonal cooking pot? What is in your autumn oven?
22. Special meal or all season? Do you save a specific recipe or do you indulge as the mood strikes? Just autumn, just October, just Halloween? All year?
23. Favorite treat from outside the home. Is there a local restaurant or shop with a special something only available around this time?

Snap, snap (and on the other side of the cemetery path) "Oh, Herman!"

24. Addams Family. Let's talk theories. Let's talk fan fic. Let's. Describe. Ourselves. As Addamses. I am Cousin atty and I live on a twilight beach that the Addams visit for summer vacation. The sun never quite rises and the palm trees are full of fruity bats.
25. Do you enjoy the movies from the 90s? Do you remember the cartoon that came around not long after? Did you watch the cartoon from the 70s?
26. How about the Munsters? Are they on your lists? I regularly feel the Addams get all the gloom light! Let's show some love for 1313 Mockingbird Lane!
27. Uncle Gilbert visited the Munsters (season 1, episode 31), tying the Universal Monsters (Gillman!) into this universe. If you were a Munsters uncle or aunt or other, who would you be? (Arguably, Grandpa is Dracula, but Dracula is so much bigger than Universal... also, this is a shallow excuse to dive into the Black Lagoon on this blog post.)
28. Write a fan fic postcard from the Addams to the Munsters, or vice versa! Or both!

Home Haunted Home

29. How do you decorate? When do you decorate? Is this an all-year affair? Do you have "every day Halloween decorations" and "seasonal Halloween decorations"? Do you use the "good Halloween dishes" for the special occasion of it actually being Halloween?
30. Do you make your own decorations? Have you never, but are going to start this year? If this question has inspired you to make something, what are you going to start with? I want to work on super simple things (simple banners) and work my way up to full artwork and paintings.
31. And of course, the gourds. Sketch your pumpkin line up. How are you carving? A lot or a few? One at a time or cluster? Traditional grin, grimace? Sculptural masterpiece? Props? A scene? Simple? If you cannot draw it out, take a photo, print it out, paste it onto the postcard, and mail it out!