My favorite holiday, you ask?

Halloween.  Simple as that.  I love Easter for the eggs and worship.  I love Christmas for the midnight church services, gathering of family, and the acceptance of everyone being in their pajamas until almost noon opening gifts.  The laughing, having a fire in the fireplace, eating hot chocolate and, thanks to my mother-in-law, "monkey bread" (how did I live without that stuff?) and... of course... taking pictures.  Thanksgiving?  Well, not my favorite holiday.  Let's just say that I tend to overeat and jump on my cousins' enormous trampoline a little too much.

But Halloween is the fun holiday.  You get to be someone else for an evening.  The fall colors are in full bloom.  Kids are laughing and smiling.  And!  People decorate.  Not because they feel like they're missing something if they don't... because they want to.  Heck!  Some neighbors a few blocks away from our house did an entire Jaba the Hut/Star Wars thing in their yard.  Why?  Because it's HALLOWEEN!  Duh!

What I like most about this holiday is that there is no stress involved like other holidays.  The running around, visiting all sorts of family... not that I don't love my family.  But I can put some Dracula teeth in my mouth, and hand out candy to kids at our front door.  OR... I can get dressed up, hit the town, and have a blast.  This year will be more mellow than some, but still fun nonetheless, and I think we've gotten off to a great start already with pumpkin carving at my folks' house last night.  Here's just a few photos.  Enjoy!

Oh!  DUH!  I should probably try to make this somewhat photography related, even though the pictures are photographs...  I'm normally a Lightroom addict, but for these I used CS4 for the diptych and watermarking, and then adjusted colors right in CS4.  A little preset I just made up in case you're curious:

Vibrance tab:
Vibrance: -69
Saturation: +43
Color Balance tab:
Cyan - Red: +57
Magenta - Green: 0
Yellow - Blue: -27

Photographers helping photographers. :-)