New York : Village Halloween Parade 2016 and More

It was that time of the year when we let our favorite devils and heroes be victorious in the most wackiest and spookiest way we could think of. I call it an adult fancy dress live show where inhibitions are left at the corner of our homes and we walk on the street with our kids or our families or our partners or even alone celebrating fantasy or real life super characters whether its batman, or a cop, or honeybees, or fairies, or Draculas, or Dragons, or witches and if we haven’t gotten a costume, we get our faces painted and tainted that represents us on that day. Some of us party hard on Halloween Parties while others celebrate their homes in a spooky way.

A scary choice indeed for voters! Halloween Masks gets it cool.

It doesn't come everyday.. when you get to be the spookiest.

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 New York of all, celebrate the spirit of Halloween in the world’s largest Halloween Parade called New York Village Halloween Parade where hundreds of puppets, bands of different types of music, dancers and artists, and thousands of other New Yorkers in costumes of their own creation participate.

Watch my vlog on New York Halloween Parade 2016



 So why is Halloween Celebrated? 

 The word Halloween comes from “Hallowe’en” meaning”halloween evening” or “holy evening”. It s thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic Festival where people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts.

Activities such as Halloween Costume Parties, Carving Pumpins, Trick or Treat, Lighting Bonfires ,visiting Haunted Attractions, visiting Horror Films and very popular during Halloween. Halloween is celebrated on Oct 31, during this time the Celts believed that the barrier between living and dead was the thinnest and hence it was possible to communicated with the deceased.

 Where to shop for Halloween 

 Just a couple of weeks before, shops are lined up with props, goodies, masks, wigs, fake tattoos, fake blood, fake teeth and etc. If you were to get good Halloween collection for yourself do check out 2 floored Halloween Adventure shop on 4th Avenue. 

Meanwhile the route of subways are diverted.

99 cents pizza..

4 th Avenue has also shops such as Gothic Renaissance and New York costumes. Superstores such as Walmart, Dollar Store etc also do carry inexpensive Halloween Stuff during that time. When it comes to costumes, I found Amazon to be the most reasonably priced although, I didn’t spend so much on the costumes, I just got a mask!

 I got a Halloween Glow Mask and Glow Hair Spray from Village Party Store at 8th Street whereas my hubby got a similar to Joker Mask. Unluckily for me both the glow mask and glow hair spray didn’t glow at all, so I got face paint from Michaels and painted my face under my mask, which when now I look at pictures, looks scary too!

 So How Did It Start

 Since the subways were diverted, at a lot of places, we took a Ferry from Port Imperial New Jersey and landed at Midtown. From there we took a Ferry Bus which had drops near to Halloween Parade Start location. As soon as we entered the bus, the few people that the bus contained, were all Halloween Parade attendees.

One of which was dressed like a football player with the big ball helmet head gear and the whole costume of a player. He said he would walk in the parade than be a spectator because last time when he was standing someone threw something from their balcony of their home. Now that's scarier :P

 So How Did Our Parade Go 

 A day prior to Halloween celebration on 31st Monday, Central Park had their small Halloween event for free, where they were supposed to have Halloween Costumes Parade / Spooky Stories / Pumpkin Flotilla / Live bat encounter presentation / Pumpkin Carving at Charles A Dana Discovery Center. But due to rains, it got cancelled.We had to change 3 subways to reach Central Park from Times Square because the routes were diverted.

As we reached by about 7:30 pm, the crowd was overwhelming, in fact, one thing I am slowly learning about New York is: Waiting Time happens. Whether you want to be part of Travel Massive Any Event or Pizza or Michael’s Free Craft Classes, I wonder how is it, that it is always loaded and I end up in waiting. Sometimes waiting moves, sometimes not. 

 And that is exactly what happened on that fateful night. Due to crowd and barricades plenty, it was only till 8:30 pm we could sneak in the parade. I wonder if people arrive 1 or 2 hours before to be a spectator on 6tth avenue or a parade participant. Because even if we tried to be a spectator, there were people in front of us, who we couldn’t squeeze through, and so as many, the option we had was to either capture with selfie stick upheld or some how be in the parade. Finally, we could make it to the parade.

 Being in the parade is an experience in itself. The crowd sizzles with rhymes of music and dance in Halloween costumes. Spectators get to enjoy the view of it all. One of the great ways to know what goes inside the parade is to be a volunteer, which I had no idea about prior. Else I would have definitely participated in volunteering to animate puppets or to marshal the parade. Probably next year!

 Anyways, guys here are my few glimpses from the parade which I could capture from my phone and a short video to take you through it all.