Every neighborhood has this one kid who is afraid of everything.

In my neighborhood it was me.

When I was in kindergarten we had a big empty shell of a sea turtle in the classroom. I would not dare to pass near it. In my mind it looked like a monument to the possibly horrible death of a creature which was not so friendly-looking to begin with.

There was also a book about nature with a photo of skulls and antlers of different deer. Every time I read that book I had to skip the horrifying page, or I will be doomed for nightmares about hollow eye sockets looking for revenge.

I was also very scared of anything related to dinosaurs. Remember the dinosaur part from Disney’s original Fantasia? Traumatizing.
And ghosts. If a thought about supernatural phenomenon sneaked into my hectic little brain it would be the end of my day.

I was afraid of aliens, wolves, animals with deformities (like my cousin’s 3-legged chick or the cow with two heads in the local museum), skeletons, dead cats (don’t ask) and at some point even carrots, because someone told me that they can feel when you eat them.

I recalled all of these because Halloween is coming, and I was wondering what would have happened if I grew up in a country in which Halloween is celebrated? How would kid-me feel with all the spooky decorations in people’s yards, that some of them could creep my out even today? I would probably want to hide in my room until someone bring order back to the streets.

Or, perhaps, I would go out to seek the horrors and masochistically enjoy the fear. Because strangely, I was always a little bit attracted to the creepy and the bizarre. I remember times that I deliberately read ghost stories or watch a scary movie out of pure fascination, and later spent one week at my parents’ bed.

I also enjoyed creating the horrors myself, by inventing the scariest stories or making up all kinds of horrifying creatures.

I actually still do it. Not too long ago I found myself telling my husband a bed time story about a haunted glove factory. My husband was worried about work and that was my way of steering his mind away from it.

So I really can’t guess what I would have done if Halloween was celebrated in Israel and how it would have effected me. I’m a bit disappointed that I never had the chance to find out.

There is also another aspect of Halloween that I’m sad for missing out, and that’s the cute and not scary decorations. A couple of years ago I happened to be in the U.S in September and I saw the variety of Halloween decorations in Walmart. The Halloween stuff is more cartoonish and kids oriented than the stuff for Christmas. I love it. 

Even though I don’t get to be part of the Halloween vibe, I still enjoy it by creating designated illustrations. This year I made a collection of friendly Halloween characters that would cause no fright to scaredycats like myself.

If you want, you can bring this gang into your own Halloween party by downloading my new free printable. It’s a set of cute treat bag toppers for Halloween.

Click on the image to get straight there: