What is the Halloween badge that I speak of? Earlier this year, I was scrolling through Facebook when I came across something that made me stop my scroll – it was an ad that had lots of badges in it. The badges weren’t for kids, they were for adults. I immediately went to the website and checked it out. It was the Rebel Badge Club, and I was sold. Crafting Badge? Awesome. Self-Care Badge? Sweet! Linguist badge? Stellar. And so, I sought out the book and got to work… but then my mom died, and I stopped progress on all the badges I’d been working on.
Still, I wanted to participate, so when I saw in the Facebook group there was a Halloween badge, I knew I had to have it. Halloween, after all, is my favorite holiday. I’d already claimed the Community Service badge for my hours of work volunteering for Girl Scouts, so this is my second earned badge from the Rebel Badge Club.
The 8 Clauses I Chose for Earning My Halloween Badge
The Halloween Badge has 16 clauses, to earn the badge, you must choose 8 of those. I chose:
- Watch a scary or spooky movie and review it
- Decorate your porch in a Halloween theme
- Take a group of children trick-or-treating or host a Halloween party
- Read a gothic novel and review it
- Research the origins of Halloween
- Do some Halloween baking
- Use autumn leaves for a beautiful photo or craft
- Design and cook a spooky menu
I’d wanted to go to the pumpkin patch, but we missed that opportunity and wound up not getting carving pumpkins. I have the items to make toffee apples with, I just need to actually do that. I also have notes for learning more about a supernatural being and alternative autumn festivals to Halloween. I plan on doing those two things as well, on my own time.
To learn more about what I did for each clause and my reviews, read on.
1. Watch a scary or spooky movie and review it. I chose The Skeleton Key (2005)
I didn’t know what to think going into watching The Skeleton Key. A lot of people in the group were choosing Hocus Pocus 2, and I wanted to veer away from that and go with something truly spooky. I’ve also found myself in a bit of a gothic novel jag (more on that in a moment), so I wanted something in that genre for my spooky movie as well. I grew up on horror films, so it takes a lot to scare me. I was really hoping this film would fit the bill.
Kate Hudson plays Caroline Ellis, a hospice worker who lost her dad and gives her all to her patients. After a patient dies in the facility she’s working in, and she’s told to toss his belongings, she decides she needs a new job, so she looks in the help-wanted ads. She finds what seems like a perfect position – live in hospice care for a gentleman who lives out in the Louisiana Bayou.
There were two things I loved about this film – first how it went into the culture in the New Orleans area. Second, I love how it wasn’t predictable. So many times I feel like I watch a mystery or a horror film (or read it for that matter), and I predict what happens long before the end. This movie kept me guessing throughout.
I also really enjoyed how well this movie took on the gothic horror genre. There is a really good interplay between the psychological horror and the physical and visual spookiness that happens in this film. I was not disappointed, and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a scary movie that is different.
When searching for a movie to watch, I found this great list of gothic films from Screenrant, and I definitely have my future viewing cut out for me!
2. Decorate your front porch in a Halloween theme
The second clause invited participants to decorate their porches. I haven’t done this in a few years, since it’s been a minute between the pandemic and postpartum depression that I’ve decked our porch out. I started work on this clause by looking up some ideas and inspiration. I wound up finding three projects I want to add to our front yard for Halloween and some items I’d like to get to add to our decorations.
I really want a life-size skeleton to put on our porch table just hanging out. I also think one of those crawling zombies would be fun for an area near our sidewalk. Some hanging witches’ hats and bats would be fun as well. While trick-or-treating last night, I saw some fun glowing eyes in a bush that I’ve added to my list, and after decorating our porch, I thought it would be fun to spookify some of our front-facing windows.
Some DIY projects I’ve added to my list, which will now be next-year’s list are this fun ghost scene, these eyes up in a tree, and these awesome DIY spiders I’d love to attach to our garage door somehow.
What I did do with our front porch was use fake spider web, orange lights, Harvey the Wonder Spider, and some dollar tree headstones we already had. I LOVED how it turned out.
3. Take a Group of Children Trick-or-Treating or Host a Halloween Party
Our Girl Scouts troop had a Halloween party, our Cub Scouts pack had a Halloween party, our homeschooling group did trunk-or-treat, and we went trick-or-treating. There were loads of festivities to be had.
4. Read a Gothic Novel and Review It
I wound up reading 2 1/2 gothic novels during the course of Halloween month even though I only needed to earn one to earn the Halloween badge. The first was The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas. The Second was Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The third novel I started (I’m about halfway through it) was Thistlefoot by Gennarose Nethercott.
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
If I’ve read gothic horror previously, I wasn’t aware I was reading it. The Hacienda was my first real foray into this genre (yes, I know, I should have read Frankenstein, but I’ll be truthful here and say that I didn’t. Not all the way through, anyway.) Needless to say, while I had already planned to have a spooky novel fest throughout October, this novel sealed the deal – and made me choose to focus on the gothic novels I could get my hands on.
In The Hacienda, we meet Beatriz, whose father was killed during the overthrow of the Mexican government. Rather than spend her life in her aunt’s debt, Beatriz meets the charming enough Don Rodolfo Solórzano, who proposes to her. They marry, and Beatriz finds herself at his residence, Hacienda San Isidro.
When Rodolfo returns to the capital to work, strange things begin happening. His sister, Juana, refuses to enter the home. The folks working at the hacienda won’t go into the dark areas. Beatriz starts noticing strange things around her and having strange dreams.
There were a few things I enjoyed about reading this novel. The first was that it was unputdownable. I had a hard time setting it down when I needed to. Second, I learned a lot about a historical period we just didn’t learn about at all in school. I found myself looking up articles about the Mexican War of Independence. I also learned a lot about agave and pulque since the Solórzano family’s fortune was built on this crop.
Finally, I enjoyed the fact that I didn’t see the ending coming.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Mexican Gothic had been on my reading list for quite a while, so I was really happy to get to this one finally. This novel was really creative – and really, really, really creepy. It’s stuck with me several weeks after finishing it (in fact, I quickly read Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility before starting Thistlefoot.)
While The Hacienda starts with the main character getting married, Mexican Gothic starts with Noemí Taboada being called into her father’s study and asked to check up on her sick cousin. Her cousin wrote a concerning note, saying that her husband was trying to poison her. Noemí makes a plan to travel to High Place to see what’s going on.
I really enjoyed Noemí’s character in this novel. She’s feisty and pushes the envelope a lot when it comes to gender norms. This novel was set during the 1950s, and the roles for women were a lot different then. I love that this bit of feminism wound up being woven through the novel. It made me really root for her.
I also really enjoyed the pacing of the novel. This was another one I just couldn’t put down. I also yelled “Ew! Groty!” Which made my husband crack up because I sat the novel down and looked at it then said “It’s soooooo creepy!”
If you like being creeped out, this is a novel you really ought to have on your must-read list. I absolutely loved it.
5. Research the Origins of Halloween
For this step, I read a few books and web articles and took notes in my notebook. The origins of Halloween are kind of really cool and complex. I found that this article about Halloween by the History Channel was a good start to my research. I made notes for things to follow up on later.
6. Do some Halloween baking
I had grand plans for this. Grand plans. I wound up needing to simplify said plans. I have a bunch of fun Halloween baking recipes pinned on Pinterest for later, though. I wound up making Brownie bats, inspired by a couple of posts and by this post by Betty Crocker. Of course… it turned out to be a “nailed” it moment, but it was still fun. And I mean brownies are always delicious.
7. Use autumn leaves for a beautiful photo or craft
Originally, I thought I might do a craft for this clause of the Halloween badge – and I think I may still make a craft just for fun, but I wound up taking a lot of photos of autumn leaves (and I wound up taking a few photos of the little water features when we were mini-golfing because I loved the way the light was hitting everything). They’re so pretty, right?
8. Design and cook a spooky menu
Last year, Amazon had a deal on this super-fun skull waffle maker. I bought it with visions of making loads of skull waffles. You can guess how that turned out. So, the Halloween badge inspired me to justify keeping said waffle maker by using it to make breakfast for dinner. We had skull and crossbones – pumpkin spice waffles with bacon and sausage.
So, there you have it – all the steps I did to earn my Halloween badge! Next up is the Write Every Day badge, which I’m hoping to earn by completing my NaNoWriMo project. I’m already 1700 words in, so I’m off to a good start.
