Adventurer's Journal

Journal #5 The Abysmal Realm: Halloween Parties

Continuing with the "Ultimate Trinket Adventure [Mainland]"  I am now deep in the 5th and perhaps darkest Challenge of this activity... "The Abysmal Realm"

To clear this world, the task presented was to write an entry prompted by one of 5 animated gifs. Given that all of the gifs had a dark theme to them and they matched the experiences that I am intending to share, any of the would probably have worked for this entry. However because they looked so much fun, let's go with the same one I used for the writing portion composition of these challenges earlier today (see "Skeleton Dance" ).

When I was thinking of experiences that the gifs reflected, my mind again traveled back to experiences from childhood. This time it went to the Halloween parties that my school used to host. They were really fun and I remember a lot of experiences from them. The school Halloween parties were like Carnival event with each class hosting a carnival game. Students took turns running the booths and the rest of the time we were allowed to browse the carnivals on our own. One class had a game similar to three card Monty. Players were given 3 object to choose from; two were painted yellow and the third was painted red. They were hidden by containers and players needed to guess which one had the red object in it. If the participants were able to correctly pick which container had the red object in it, they would get a prize. We were however instructed to give younger kids the prizes anyway.

Some other events I remembered experiencing that other classes organized were a scavenger hunt and the haunted house. I remember taking part in the scavenger hunt activity not understanding quite how they work. It was my first experience taking part in this type of and I didn't realize that the clues were meant to be solved in a particular order. I wound up solving the last clue way before I was supposed to and reporting back that I completed it only to discover that you had to complete the game a certain way.

The haunted house was probably one of the more elaborate activities organized at the Halloween parties. It was done by the 6th grade class; the oldest at my elementary school. It was set up as a crawl tunnel with cardboard walls. There were several openings where the students running the activity would jump out at you in disguise. It was actually pretty elaborately set up considering it was done by elementary students. My youngest brother had a mishap going through the Haunted tunnels. He wound up accidentally losing his shoe inside it. The students and teacher running the tunnel were very nice and stopped the activity temporarily so we could find his shoe. It was funny how the room immediately shifted from a haunted house to a friendly classroom the second the lights turned on with the student still in their costumes helpfully searching the carboard maze to find the shoe with us.

I remember the foods at the party being really great. They were set up like a potluck dinner with everyone's family supplying a dish. Being a Halloween party there were a ton of candy treats available there along with a variety of desserts and sodas to choose from. The most popular food at these event though was Pizza. You had to quick to nab a slice as they tended to disappear within seconds of being placed on the table.

There was also an annual lottery events at the party where me and my brothers were actually lucky enough to win a few times. One time we achieved the third place prize... a brand new basketball. However even more impressive was that we managed to will the first place prize once too... a set of diamond earrings. Another prize that my brother successfully won at one of the parties was gigantic bag of popcorn. That one took a little bit of skill as it was obtained by guessing the number of kernels in the bag. In an amazing display of estimation skill my brother guessed closer than anyone at the party.

The parties would always close out with a Halloween parade and costume contest. There were always some elaborate costumes to choose from. The show stopper on more than one occasion was my English teacher who would come out in an Elaborate Elvis costume with music playing in the background. Looking back at these parties I can't help smiling when I think about them. They really were a lot of fun.

Word Count: 766 words