Halloween is the best holiday ever and everybody knows it. Anyone who likes any other holiday better is a big, wrong, jerk who needs to be kicked real hard in the nuts right now. Unless they are a girl. In which case, who knows what you should do, because GIRLS ARE A MYSTERY. But these girls are wrong, too. The superiority of Halloween is a scientific fact that has been proven in studies too numerous to mention. TOO NUMEROUS, I SAID! No, no, no, don't go running to your precious 'internet' to look up studies, I said they were too numerous. Do you want a real hard kick in the nuts? 'Cause I got a big bag of 'em.

SO. Now that we agree on the inherent bestness of Halloween, what action should we take? Yes. We need to know ways to make all other Holidays more like Halloween. And I am just the person to tell you how to do it. You might want to cover your nuts, in case you look wrong at me.

YOUR BIRTHDAY

This one is easy; so I'll start with it, ease you into the whole idea. Your birthday is the one day you have all control over. Your mother will almost certainly do whatever you require of her for your birthday. If you no longer live at home (and don't lie, my nut-kicking boot is on) give your mother plenty of advance notice, especially if she will need airline tickets. Tell her this: The theme of my birthday party is to be SPOOKY COSTUMES! And on the invitations have her hand calligraphy that all presents should be candy. NO FUN SIZE!!!

NEW YEAR'S EVE
Invite all your friends to a New Years Eve bash! Tell them the theme will be... SPOOKY COSTUMES! Have huge bowls of candy. NO FUN SIZE! DON'T BE A CHEAP BASTARD! As a fun party game, bob for apples in festive ice buckets of champagne. As the huge, spooky grandfather clock you have purchased specifically for this party chimes the first stroke of midnight, you and your guests RUSH MADLY FROM NEIGHBORING HOUSE TO NEIGHBORING HOUSE, POUNDING ON THE DOORS! You must be fleet of foot, for once the twelve chimes have wrung, the deed must be... all done! As your mystified, frightened neighbors answer the door, shout "Trick or Noise Making Toy!" They will applaud your initiative in making their New Year's Eve more ghoulish.

VALENTINE'S DAY
What boy or girl will not be charmed (AND HORRIFIED!!) When gifted with a REAL HEART stuffed with chocolates and RUN THROUGH WITH AN ARROW! Real hearts can be obtained from Carolina biological supply.

EASTER
Here comes Peter Cottontail, Hopping down the Bunny Trail, hippity hoppitty... MY GOD! These decorative eggs contain RAW HAMBURGER AND LIVE SPIDERS!! What a SPOOKY, GHOULISH surprise!! Or, if you don't like that, a ZOMBIE JESUS is a truly terrifyingly appropriate delight! Because he rose from the dead. See, he was dead, and then he came back. Like a zombie. How is that offensive?

PASSOVER
Don't be shy if you are a GOY! Passover abounds with MORBID, SPOOKY, GHOULISH fun!! Inform your family and friends that your Seder will have... A SPOOKY COSTUME THEME! Your guests must dress as one of the TEN PLAGUES! Or eight. However many it was. And then when you open the door for Elijah, HE'S ACTUALLY THERE! AND HE TUMBLES OVER DEAD WITH A KNIFE IN HIS BACK! OOOOOoooooh! That's some PETRIFYING PASSOVER SHENNANIGANS!! Brrrrrrrr!

JULY 4TH
All it takes is a huge amount of cash and whores to get the boys launching the fireworks to 'miscalculate' their trajectory, so that halfway through the display, the fireworks start EXPLODING mere FEET above the PANICKING CROWD! As the mass becomes a mob and attempt to flee, you and your friends (whom you have previously informed that this Fourth of July will have a patriotic SPOOKY COSTUME THEM!) will rise up out of the camouflaged pits they have lain as patient as the dead within since midday, DRESSED AS THE UNQUIET DEAD OF WORLD WAR ONE!! Smoke bombs and pelting terrified, squealing children with candy is optional. NO FUN SIZE!

THE HIGH HOLY DAYS

This one you probably ought to be Jewish for. Every night during the Ten Days of Repentance, wander from house to house in your neighborhood, dressed as an old Jewish peasant from the Schtetl. Knock on doors, and when someone answer, with a world-weary yet humorously wise glint in your eye, tell them "Trick or Kosher Treat". Warn them that on Yom Kippur, the Book of Life will close once more, and woe betide any who have only given Fun Size treats. (Alternative: Instead of asking for treats, see if anyone knows what the word 'Schtetl' means)

THANKSGIVING
Demand that Thanksgiving be celebrated at your house. Imagine your guests surprise and TERROR when you greet them at the door dressed as a ZOMBIE PILGRIM WITH A TOMOHAWK IN HIS HAT WITH A BUCKLE ON IT or a ZOMBIE NATIVE AMERICAN DEAD FROM SMALLPOX! SMAAAALLLPOOOOXX!! HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAA!!! Serve the traditional dishes, but with a ghoulish twist! Mashed potatoes with RUBBER TOES mashed right in! Brown GRAVE-y! Green 'Human' bean casserole! Canned Cran-BRAINY-sauce! Dangerously under Roasted Turkey! OOOOOOH! SALMONELLA!! CHILLINGLY SPOOKY!

KWANZAH
Select the nearest gated community and rush from door to door with your friends, demanding candy, dressed as horrifying, ghoulish, spooky... BLACK PEOPLE! WHAT COULD BE MORE TERRIFYINGLY SHIVER-INDUCING THAN BLACK PEOPLE?!? Oh, like you're not scared of black people. Didn't I already tell you not to lie because I had my nut-kicking boot on?

CHRISTMAS
This one is complicated, because A.) It's Halloween's biggest competitor for "Best Holiday" and 2.) The whole idea has been covered in the very ghoulish and spookily spine tingling "Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas". SO. It will take all your creativity and all the money and whores you've saved since July 4th to make Christmas more like Halloween and original. I bet you thought you could get away with just doing a "Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas" themed party. I should kick you in the nuts right now OH NO I DID NOT FORGET ABOUT MY RUNNING 'KICK YOU IN THE NUTS' JOKE! I'LL KICK YOU REAL HARD IF THE MOOD STRIKES ME! IN THE NUTS!! BOO!! AH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAAAAAAA!!

Okay, anyway. The whole secret of making this one work is NO ONE MUST SUSPECT YOUR EVIL AND GHOULISH PLAN! Which will be tough what with all the other shit you've pulled this year. You will need to spend the entire period between Thanksgiving and Christmas decorating your lawn and house with Christmas lights, light-up Santas, Frosty the Snowman, light up nativity scenes! Go caroling, buy gifts, make Christmas cookies for everyone! Buy the tallest tree you can and decorate it so heavily you can barely see a single branch! Invite family from far and wide, for Christmas is the holiday of love and family, and when your dubious and wary relatives ask if this Christmas will have a spooky costume theme, chuckle with delight! Buy the biggest, widest, flattest, high-definitionest TV money can buy and entertain the kiddies on Christmas Eve with "Rudolph" and "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Take them all to candlelight midnight mass and when you come home, you've rented a HORSE-DRAWN SLEIGH! Oh, how tired they will all be, everyone will fall asleep so quickly, everyone's head will be dancing with Sugarplums, but not yours. The Roofies you've been gobbling by the fistful all evening will see to that, AND supply you with the extra energy you'll need to spend the first hours of Christmas day nailing all the doors and windows shut, so that no one can escape when you set your own house on fire.

'Cause killing your entire family on Christmas morning? THAT is some very spooky and ghoulish shit, my friends. Oh yes. 'Trick or Treat' isn't always bout the 'Treat' is it?

Now take your nuts and get the hell out of here, 'fore I kick 'em real hard. BOO!

-Max Burbank
 

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK! YOU FOUND SCARY-ASS TRADING CARD #10!
COLLECT ALL 12 FOR A SURPRISE!

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*copy this URL down, you'll need it once you've found all 12 cards!*

Sometimes evil is a simple matter of things getting out of hand. Everybody procrastinates now and then. Most people at one time or another get depressed and put stuff off to the point where it's just not healthy. And then there's this.

On February 15, 2002, investigators from the EPA found a massive backlog of unfinished contracting at a business just outside of Lafayette, Georgia. Not so out of the ordinary, really. Except that the business was the Tri-State Crematorium. Stacks and piles and mounds of rotting corpses, in sheds, under tarps, in the woods behind the buildings.

Ray Brent Marsh, owner and proprietor, plead guilty to a series of charges, and so was never called upon to explain himself. At his sentencing hearing he said to the relatives of the deceased. "I know many of you came here for answers. I have none."

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