Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Things Needed for a Perfect Halloween to Yourself

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week there is a new topic for bloggers to choose and list their top ten. This week’s theme is a Halloween freebie, so I picked Top Ten Things Needed for a Perfect Halloween to Yourself.

Happy Halloween everyone!

I’m not a massive fan of Halloween; partly because it’s more of an American thing than a British one and partly because I never went  trick-or-treating as a child. Still I love the atmosphere of October 31st, even if I choose to celebrate Halloween by reading, watching movies, and eating loads of chocolate that should really go to the trick-or-treaters who knock on the door.

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My Recipe for a Perfect Halloween…

…A ‘Scary’ Book (or Four) to Curl up With

I’m a huge wimp, and I’ll be the first to admit it because everyone else who knows me well will back up that statement, so I’m never going to love reading horror books the way I do fantasy and I’m certainly never going to start a book filled with blood and guts, tension and jump-scares after dark.

When I say ‘scary’ I don’t mean a genuine horror story. For me the perfect Halloween read is something light-hearted, with plenty of humour and a touch of magic; something like My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows, or Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, or The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee.

The scariest I’ll go is something like There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins, a book which reminded me of Scream, a film I consider to be a horror classic.

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…A ‘Scary’ Film (or Four) to Watch Late at Night

Again you can probably guess that when I say ‘scary’ I don’t mean the one of the films from the Saw franchise. Incidentally I did see one of those films at the cinema, I watched maybe five minutes before putting on my iPod and hiding behind my hands because it was too much for me.

I mean a film like Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, with magic and adventure and Halloween feasts interrupted by a troll in the dungeon, or a film like Hocus Pocus, which I haven’t seen yet but which is my Halloween movie pick for 2017.

The scariest I’ll go is The Mummy, not the one with Tom Cruise, or Scream, which shouldn’t be a surprise after I mentioned There’s Someone Inside Your House.

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…Candles

It’s not quite a pumpkin you’ve carved by hand, because let’s be honest who has the time, energy and patience for that, but it’s close enough right? You can head to Yankee Candle to buy some of their Halloween editions, or browse Etsy and see what bookish candles you can find.

In my opinion they’ll smell better than a pumpkin you’ve gutted and stuck a tealight in, even if they’re not quite as atmospheric.

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…Treats

Because it’s not Halloween without chocolate.

Lock the door, turn off all the lights, and if you get any trick-or-treaters come calling pretend you’re not home. That way you don’t have to share all the chocolate.

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So what do you think? Did you take part in this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, if so let me know what you picked for this week’s themed free-for-all, or what the things you’d need for a perfect Halloween evening are.