#alfred is a giant loveable child with a golden retriever personality

[milliethekitty27-writing]

Alfred In October

On the last day of September, every single nation who is friends with Alfred on any social media platform blocks him without hesitation. 

Yes, even his brother. 

You may be wondering why, because Alfred’s social media is always a train wreck, but the answer is plain and simple.

Alfred spends all of October screaming about Halloween. 

The first day is endless spooky scary skeleton memes. These will continue throughout the month, but they’re particularly prevalent on the first day. Matthew sends him All I Want For Christmas links he disguises as other things, rick-rolling but with Mariah Carrey. Alfred usually ends up calling his brother yelling that it’s too early. Jett’s started doing it too and Alfred’s only a little salty.

The first weekend is decorating the house - he covers it in fake spiderwebs, a big blow up cat that moves its head, and there are orange lights everywhere. He hangs ghosts in the tree and gets fake red eyes that glow to shove into bushes.

On the second weekend, he gets anyone who comes to visit (sometimes he goes alone, but often Matt or Jett or Kiku or one of his friends will come by because as irritating as Alfred’s love for October may be, it is a lot of fun) to go with him to a haunted house. They leave shaking and laughing and making fun of each other and get milkshakes, and the next day they go to a huge farmers market to pick out the best produce for a big holiday feast (Matthew, without fail, teases him about when Thanksgiving is, like the coward doesn’t come over for Thanksgiving to stuff himself full of pie and turkey and fall asleep watching football with him. They fight, but they do get along rather well. Hockey is the biggest danger) 

His halloween party often happens that second weekend, because he likes to have the next two weeks to fully prepare. It happens Saturday night, after his haunted house, so he can shop in the morning and make those who came for the House help him clean up his house. He makes pumpkin desserts and gets out his fog machine, invites his friends from all around the world. Sometimes it’s a small party, sometimes half of the world is there (literally) Everyone dresses up and there’s games and movies and music and it’s a blast. He spends the entire week cleaning up, and the third weekend is quiet because he’s still recovering. 

He does his pumpkins on the third weekend, as close to Halloween as he can spare to keep them in the best shape. He posts pictures of the process to Instagram. Pumpkin carving is a very serious time because he wants it to be just right. He blasts reruns of Halloween Wars and eats hershey bars as he scrolls through pinterest looking for ideas. He buys his pumpkins that weekend, usually at some local farm that sells apple cider. He’ll walk around for hours doing corn mazes with apple cider in hand, picking out the very best pumpkins. He cuts at the bottom and scoops out the guts, sometimes calling Matthew to see what he’s doing (Matthew likes Halloween too, don’t get me wrong, but Alfred goes batshit) Alfred is one of those pumpkin carvers who can get the flash scraped down so it glows and has texture. He uses a real candle because he can and sprinkles cinnamon inside, he covers it with lemon to try to keep it preserved, and he places it outside, maybe on his porch or next to the cat. 

Alfred goes ham on the candy. He gets the big candy bars, the good stuff, and for the kids who can’t have the sweets he gets those Japanese erasers you can pull apart or really neat pens. He stocks up good (he’ll eat it or give it away if not enough kids come) Some years he makes caramel apples for the kids who are really brave and are willing to give him a song or a dance, or just for himself because they’re delicious.

The only thing he doesn’t do in October is the costume. He’s had that ready for months. Some years he does superheroes but other years he just goes more generic. There was one year he went as a pirate; Arthur spat out his tea and lectured him about proper boots and all that. (this year he was going to do a zombie of some kind, but he changed his mind since there had been a lot of death and he needed a break) He dresses up as a cowboy instead, complete with spurs and a lasso at his hip, and he prepares his best Western accent. 

He loves to stay by the door and see the kids costumes. He loves watching children of all ages running up and down the path, hooting and hollering, getting scared by the neighbors (one of whom is almost as bad as Alfred, but likes to up the scare-antics). He sees children who’ve come to his house for ages slowly growing up, and he gets to dunk loads of candy into their bags while Hocus Pocus blasts in the background. 

He runs his mini candy store from five-thirty until eight-thirty, when most kids start going to bed. Then he leaves the candy bowl outside for the last stragglers, turns out the light at nine, and watches scary movies. 

On the years when Matt visits (he was supposed to this year, but everyone was sick and they agreed they’d make it even grander next year) they dress up in twin costumes (they were tentatively thinking Thing One and Thing Two, and if they could get Francis or Arthur to come they were going to make them be the Cat in the Hat) and stay up until five in the morning screaming at ghosts and shoveling popcorn into their mouths. For this year, though, Alfred is alone, and he’s going to enjoy every second of pumpkin spice, spooky ghosts, and the autumn rainbow of the leaves as they prepare for cold weather. He’ll sip his apple cider and watch Halloween Wars and enjoy irritating everyone by emailing them about skeleton wars. 

Oh yes.

Alfred loves Halloween. 

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Thank you for reading!

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year and I love the fall, so I like to think that Alfred appreciates it too. I’m really sad that I won’t be home to do it (my neighborhood is the BEST trick-or-treating spot) and I hope things clear up enough that kids can dress up and enjoy it. I just think it’s neat, you know.

I am in school now and having to balance work, so I don’t know how consistent I’ll be with the writing (inspiration was a long time coming for this one, thank goodness for the month shift) Words are hard, man. Here’s hoping October is a gentle month of 2020!