Halloween is only 2 weeks away, and if you aren't excited yet, then keep reading. Halloween is a holiday that never gets old - it's fun for adults, and it's a hell of a lot of fun for children. Costume parties, sweets and Halloween themed-food, decorating, and scary movies applies to all ages, and although college students in general may be more excited about the partying, let's not forget what made Halloween so special in the years leading up to now. I took it upon myself to round up my best Halloween-related childhood memories to reminisce on.
1. The Disney Channel Halloween movies and TV specials 
Is it really Halloween if you haven't watched Hocus Pocus 50 million times? I'll bet all the money in my wallet (it's not a lot, but you get my point) that you still make a point to watch your favorite Disney Halloween movies at least once every year. And of course you never missed the showing of It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown either.
2. The decorations
Holidays were exciting during my childhood because I always remember coming home from school one day to a fully decorated house. Walking a block from where the school bus let me off to my house, I'd see the string lights, cobwebs and skeleton from the distance, eager for nighttime to approach so I could take it all in full-force.
3. The pumpkin carving
The smell of the pumpkin, the roasted seeds, the endless possibilities of what I could carve into it, pumpkin carving was the best. Granted, it would be rotting on the porch and half-eaten by squirrels in the matter of two weeks, but the bonding time I got with my brother and parents was the most important part of carving pumpkins.
4. The Halloween candy
As a child, trick-or-treating meant you'd have a solid free-candy supply for weeks, especially if you managed to fill an entire pillowcase. Every neighbor had something different, so it was always fun to go through it at the end of the night and eat yourself sick.
5. The costumes 
#TBT to Halloween '96. Halloween meant you could be anything you wanted to be for an entire night, whether it was a princess, pirate, superhero, your favorite character from a movie - or a little pumpkin.
6. The spooky ghost stories and books
I was an avid reader as a child, and still am. During Halloween time, I remember snatching up all the Goosebumps chapter books I could find in the classroom and school libraries, and tear through the entire book as quickly as I could. There is one distinct book, One Halloween Night, that is absolutely stuck in my brain whenever I think about my childhood Halloween memories. My brother and I were obsessed with this book, always flipping through the pages and looking at the illustrations on each page.
7. The Haunted Trails and hay rides
Every year around Halloween, my grandma would have the whole family over to celebrate Halloween. When it got dark, we would go to Sonny Acres Farm in Illinois and go on their haunted hay ride - I'm still slightly traumatized by the chainsaw man who would creep up on the ride and scare everyone.
8. Those damn-good Pillsbury pumpkin cookies
Arguably the best and most addictive cookies on the planet.
What are your best childhood memories from Halloween?
