This year, there are only a few houses in my neighborhood that are decorated for Halloween. I didn’t go all out. I put up a flag, a wreath and some garden stakes. Enough for a kid to know that the house will have candy come Halloween night.

Everyone is blaming the economy but I just think it came on way too fast this year. Along with Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are already lining the store shelves. I know because today I tried to buy a costume accessory for myself and there was hardly anything left but there was plenty of Christmas stuff.

My point? Oh yeah… there is one.

When the holidays roll around, do you find yourself reaching for holiday reads to get you into the mood? One of my favorite ghost stories is Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Here’s the blurb from Barnes and Noble:

“First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers-and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.”

The Haunting of Hill House is a classic and has been made into many movies. None of which, in my opinion, equal the book so if you saw the movie and thought, “what a load of hooey!”, then you were probably right in thinking that. In fact, I give you permission to think that.

I’ve read it many times and each time it gets creepier. If you have time this weekend, go to the library and check it out. It will definitely raise your Halloween spirits (no pun intended).