Halloween is the official start to the holiday season. While we can’t wait to start blasting Christmas music on our way to work, we’re pretty excited for the candy and costume-filled days that lie ahead.

Since it’s not really a holiday without a little reminiscing, we reached out to the inRegister staffers to learn some of their treasured Halloween memories. Read on for pictures of costumes past:

“So much to say about this picture. St. James Carnival 1982 and my sister Melissa and I are dressed as angels. Pretty sure that hers is an adaptation of a dance costume and mine is made out of a sheet. Looks like my brother Andrew didn’t dress up. This was back when mothers actually made their children’s Halloween costumes. For the angels, Mom cut the wings out of cardboard and covered them with aluminum foil–this might have been an extravagance because I remember that she used to save foil to cut costs. Seriously, if it wasn’t marked by food, she would fold it back up and put it in the drawer to use later. These angel wings are amazing, and this was before Pinterest, people.” –Ashley Sexton Gordon, publisher & editor

“When she was a toddler, my daughter couldn’t get enough of all the music from Annie. She used to love to run up and down the hall singing ‘I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here’ or ‘It’s a Hard-Knock Life’ at the top of her lungs. And with her red curls, it was a no-brainer that she should be Annie for Halloween–complete with her locket and her stuffed dog Sandy!” –Kelli Bozeman, managing editor

“My sister and I loved–and still love–dressing up, especially if it means we get to match. Halloween was always a great holiday because it meant we would get to add some new accessories to our dress-up bin. However, while we have had a lot of great costumes over the years, for my sister’s first Halloween, we dressed as sunflowers. I don’t think this was my choice and I can’t say that it suited my or her head shape. Looking back, it was pretty cute, though.” –Riley Bienvenu, community writer

“When I was a kid–a long time ago–most of the costumes were homemade. If not, the packaged ones with the plastic face masks were popular. In a group, we would walk for a couple of hours covering several neighborhoods by ourselves. I could never have allowed my children the same opportunity! It is a different world now.” –Tricia Reed, account executive

“Halloween has always been a favorite time of year for everyone in our family, and we always go out together.” –Liz Walsh, account executive

“My birthday is the day before Halloween–three minutes before, to be exact–so all my life, my birthday parties and Halloween parties were intermingled. That’s not to say I always had costume parties for my birthday, but usually my birthday weekend is just whatever is happening around town for Halloween. It actually works out because that equates to a lot of candy and cake in one weekend. Put the diets on pause.

It’s resulted in tons of fun memories, but my favorite actually fell a couple weeks before Halloween last year, when my coworker Katelyn and I got to go behind the scenes at the 13th Gate to see what it’s like to be a scare actor. We spent hours getting our costumes and makeup done before going out and actually scaring people waiting in line. It was so much fun, and I’m confident I’ll never be as scary as I was that night.” –Mark Clements, digital content editor

“One year, I decided to hide in my playroom and chop all of my hair off, thinking no one would notice. Well to my surprise, everyone obviously noticed that I suddenly looked like a little boy. My mom was so embarrassed, so as payback or punishment–as she called it at the time–I had to be Steve from Blues Clues for Halloween even though I wanted to be Mrs. Pepper. In hindsight, I should be thankful that she didn’t let me dress up as a kitchen utensil.” –Madeline Gwinn, editorial intern

Tell us your Halloween memories in the comments below, or by tagging us on Instagram and Facebook.