DAYS TO HALLOWEEN: 1
Good Morning Halloween Friends! Today is the last day of the "Halloweekend", and I'm going to try and have more fun than I did yesterday. Because tomorrow is OUR DAY. The day that we wait for, and count down towards 365 days a year.
Warning - Today is a long read, I like doing the "reflection" post that I started doing late this season as part of normal "month end", and the preview for the upcoming month, but this one is extra special because it is basically our "year end review" and I hope to share my hopes and wishes for the 2023 Season / Thread.
I feel like we kept the Halloween / Fall spirit alive all year long, this thread was a part of that, but I feel like this was supplemented by Edge's excellent "The Bers" thread, and of course the Thanksgiving thread. Bonus points awarded for every time we would delve into a Halloween or Fall topic in the "Daily Holiday Hangout". Anyway, it takes a village, and we delivered.
I enjoyed Jack O Lantern Days even more this year than I did last year. I had a feeling this might happen as I was able to incorporate more and more activities into them, just like I have done over the years with Rudolph Days. And at least in my mind, having a JOL Day even able to be compared to Rudolph Day is an amazing thing. I don't have any doubt that 2023 will continue this trend.
Dark Arts Sundays - I had no issues here whatsoever. Always fun, I always love seeing HP on the TV, I always get Halloween vibes!
We have slowly grown the thread audience here. I have no expectation whatsoever that we will ever have as much of a presence as the "main" countdown thread. The simple fact is, we are on a 24/7 Christmas site, and there are FAR MORE Christmas fans (like myself) than there are Fall/Halloween-ites. And that's a good thing, because we are a niche group of folks. I expect "attendance" to slowly grow until we probably eventually "peak". Which is fine. Quality over Quantity.
I do have two "regrets" for this year that I want to share now. First of all, by the time we found out that "Spooky Spring" was a thing, I think we were all about a week and a half to two weeks into April. And Edge had pointed out earlier this year that April was the mirror edge of October. It's really true. So my regret for that is not jumping on Spooky Spring right at the beginning. But it's firmly entrenched now in our "lineup", so counting down to it will be pretty fun and being able to jump right in on April 1st is going to be awesome.
My second regret, and I have to be honest about this one - is that because of the stress and worry about our pregnancy, I was really only about 70 - 80% mentally here on most of our milestone days and celebrations. Even my beloved JOL Days. Our journey started in February and ended on October 11th. Part of being a Dad I think means always worrying a little about everything, but by the time my major fears and worries had ceased, it was already two weeks into October nearly. I have tried to make up for lost time since then. And I can tell you honestly today that I think I am going to be EVEN MORE excited for everything next year since most of my horrible worries are in the rear view mirror at this point.
In closing up, I have just a few wishes for 2023:
- I want to continue to grow the audience here (all are welcome!)
- I want to continue to "beef up" JOL Days
- I want to continue with at least once a week having our "Fall / Halloween Thought", which we did last year and I think we are doing basically the same thing in the Thanksgiving Thread.
- I want to include "Spooky Spring" on the countdowns when it comes time to put up ALL of the main countdowns again (After Christmas)
I think that's a pretty easy list. Basically just keep the cruise control on because I think everybody in here has contributed to a great environment. So thank you to everybody for making it awesome in here. I look forward to continuing our "work" together in the 2023 countdown!
Have a great day!
