The fall festivities have begun along with Halloween just around the corner. Holly Sleight-Engler, a United States History teacher here at Grand Ledge High School [GLHS], is over the moon about Halloween. The teacher shows her love for the haunted holiday throughout her classroom and her house all year around unlike some others.
“People take their halloween decorations down? This is when I buy all my home decor. I usually put them up mid September and keep them up until the first week of November, but a lot of my stuff stays up year round,” Sleight-Engler said.
Sophomore at GLHS, Adleigh Laing, thinks Halloween decorations are strictly for the fall months.
“I think it’s okay to put fall decorations at the beginning of September and Halloween decorations at the beginning of October. Halloween decorations should be down by the latest a week after Halloween, but fall decorations can be taken down like the first week of December,” Laing said.
Although the two do share different opinions about decorations, both share a craze for Biggby Coffee. Every year coffee shops release their fall menus close to mid September that are focused on the big two flavors pumpkin spice and apple cider.
Sleight-Engler shares her opinions on the menu changes,
“I’m a Biggby person – pumpkin spice is good in moderation. I don’t understand the immense craze to have everything pumpkin spice. I love Biggby’s fall menus because I love the flavor blackberry because it gets me into fall. I also am obsessed with hot cider and sometimes with caramel in it,” Sleight-Engler said.
From a student perspective, Laing agrees with the history teacher.
“I love pumpkin spice and I think that Biggby probably has the best full menu because I think they have the most normal drinks but I feel like Starbucks sometimes gets creative with their food,” Laing said.
Everyone has their own opinion of the perfect fall activity, but Sleight-Engler gave a personal factor into hers.
“Really just being outside on the cool fall days with the sun hitting the leaves where you get the wonderful crunchy leaf smell while taking walks outside. I grew up in the country so fall is always about going outside and I hunt during fall. I check on my herd to see where they have and haven’t been,” Sleight-Engler said.
Halloween, the one night of the year where a person can have a different persona, is celebrated by many families and friends. Sleight-Engler takes great pride in her costumes yearly as she handmakes them herself.
“One of my most favorite recent ones was I dressed as a mad scientist, and I had a lab coat that was just completely shredded, and I stained it [to look] all smokey, and I had these steam boat goggles, and I put makeup on my face so it looked like something exploded in my face. My hair was all ratted out and I had the weirdest neon green leopard print skirt on and I had a bunch of plastic test tubes that I got from the dollar store that said poison on them,” Sleight-Engler said.
