13 Days of Creepmas: Best of Creepmas

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Today is the 13th and last day of Creepmas, but don't fret...you can carry the spooky holiday spirit with you the rest of the holiday season! Keep the Christmas fear alive by checking out my past Creepmas posts and visiting the blog posts below, which I've picked as my favorite of the season:

13 Days of Creepmas: Gothic Halloween Gift Wrap

I don't know about you, but I love a beautifully wrapped gift! I think that gorgeous gift wrap really shows how deeply you care for someone and creates a level of awe that might be even better than opening the actual gift! I am definitely not the best wrapper around, but I love picking out lovely gift wrap for my loved ones and friends around the holidays.

13 Days of Creepmas: My Halloween Christmas Tree

My Creepmas tree with bat topper!

I've decorated my Creepmas tree, decking it out in Halloween decorations and even a homemade bat tree topper! I have a small two foot tree and two smaller black trees (all fake, so I can reuse them every year), and I always, always decorate them like a Halloween tree...full of jack-o-lanterns, witches, bats, black cats, and ghosts! My little tree can hold lots of Halloween ornaments and decorations that I've collected over the years. I made the bat topper this year just out of two pieces of black construction paper - I traced a bat shape onto the paper, then cut out two bats, taped them together (leaving room in the middle so I could mount it on the tree), and place it on the top of the Creepmas tree!

13 Days of Creepmas: 10 Zombie Santas

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There are some pretty creepy photos of Santa Claus all over the internet, from eerie vintage photographs to awkward mall Santas, but the scariest Santas to me are the blood-drenched, gore-covered zombie Santas who are out for your brains instead of milk and cookies!

So in honor of the 10th day of Creepmas, here are 10 awesomely scary zombie Santas:

13 Days of Creepmas: Creepy Christmas Tree Toppers

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The hardest part of decorating my Creepmas tree is figuring out what to top it with! I have lots of Halloween baubles and gothic ornaments to decorate my tree with, but I always find myself stumped when trying to figure out what to top it with. A star or an angel is far too ordinary, I need something appropriately spooky and perhaps creepy to complete my Creepmas tree. So this year I turned to Google for help, and here are the terrifying (and terrifyingly awesome) suggestions it turned up:

13 Days of Creepmas: Witch City Wicks' Holiday Candles

Witch City Wicks is an independently owned candle company based out of Salem, Massachusetts. They make high-quality, 100% soy candles in a variety of scents and for every season, but I find their Halloween and Christmas scents to be the most intriguing!

13 Days of Creepmas: 7 Christmas-themed Short Horror Films

Christmas Nightmares Part 2: Home for the Holidays

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If you're like me, you've probably already seen all the Christmas horror films out there multiple times. Also, you are probably busy this time of year and may not have time to watch feature-length movies. Well, I have a solution to both of these quandaries - watch some Christmas-themed short horror films! There are lots of them out there that you probably haven't seen before, and they are bite-sized and perfect for a 10-minute break!

I've gone ahead and selected seven scary short horror films I think you'll enjoy this horror-day season, check them out below:

13 Days of Creepmas: Krampus Gifts to Terrify Naughty Boys and Girls of All Ages

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A few years ago, if you mentioned Krampus you would just get weird looks or blank stares, but since then Krampus' PR team must have worked overtime as now the holidays are full of imagery of the Christmas devil himself (if you need a refresher on the lore and history of Krampus, check out this post I wrote a few years back)!

And with the gaining popularity of Krampus, of course we get some cool Krampus products that would make great presents to terrify naughty boys and girls of any age! Check out some cool Krampus products I found below:

13 Days of Creepmas: More Ugly Creepmas Sweaters

MOB's Creepmas sweaters!

A few years back, I featured some ugly Christmas sweaters that were perfect for Creepmas creeps...and since then scary/creepy/alternative Christmas sweaters have really become all the rage! There are lots of different ugly Creepmas sweaters out there, but I found one company that seemed to have the absolute coolest ones for creeps like us.

13 Days of Creepmas: 7 Macabre Books to Add to Your Creepmas Wish List

Looking for some unusual, strange, and macabre books this Christmas? I hope you are, because I have hand-picked some that are sure to send shivers down the spines of their lucky readers! I've picked a variety of books, some which are new, while others have been lurking in dark corners for years, but all are the perfect spooky antidote to the holiday cheer that seems to be infecting everything.

Vegan Bake Sale to Benefit The Gentle Barn this Sunday

Come buy some delicious vegan holiday treats this Sunday, December 7th at The Gentle Barn animal sanctuary in Santa Clarita, California! This is the first holiday-themed bake sale that is happening at the Gentle Barn, and it looks like it will be the biggest one yet! That means you can stock up on baked goods for the holidays to gift or just enjoy them yourself! Here is a sneak peek at the goodies you could be enjoying:

• Cupcakes from Courtesan Cupcakes, Luscious Organic Desserts, Sprinkles and Sensitive Sweets
• Bundt cakes from Biggie Bakes
• Various goodies from Life is Sweet Bakeshop 
• Brownies from Native Foods
• Cheesecake and cookies from Bloom Confections
• Raw desserts from Feel Good Desserts
• Various desserts from other bakers, including snowballs, gingerbread and candy cane muffins, sticky buns, holiday cookies, s'mores bars, and much, much more!

Besides the bake sale, a trip to The Gentle Barn will let you meet some truly amazing rescued animals. This sanctuary takes in abused and neglected animals that no one else wants and rehabilitates them, letting them live the rest of their lives in peace. In turn, they use rehabilitated animals to teach their visitors about these amazingly resilient and loving animals. You can pet, hug, cuddle, and spend time with most of the animal residents, which is truly a life-changing experience in itself!

Go for the treats, go for the animals, and spend time with some inspiring people and animals!

Here are the details of the event:

LOCATION: The Gentle Barn
ADDRESS: 15825 Sierra Highway, Santa Clarita, CA 91390
DATE: Sunday December 7th, 2014
TIME: 10am – 2pm
FOR MORE INFO: Facebook Event

You can read about my past visits to The Gentle Barn here!

13 Days of Creepmas: Gingerbread Haunted Houses and Gingerdead Cookies

The Haunted Mansion's 2014 Gingerbread House at Disneyland! 

They change it every year for their Nightmare Before Christmas 

display! It is massive and I believe it is made with real gingerbread.

Building gingerbread houses for the holidays just got a whole lot creepier! Instead of traditional cutesy gingerbread houses, this year you can make a ginger-"dead" haunted house, taking inspiration from Halloween or The Nightmare Before Christmas, like the photo above! A lot of gingerbread kits are sold around Halloween, but you can also make or modify your own for Creepmas. 

13 Days of Creepmas: Creepy Calendars for 2015

Need some help creeping track of all your eerie appointments in 2015? I've dug up some suitably spooky calendars that will scare your co-workers and family while also keeping you organized. Check out some cool calendars below:

Edward Gorey 2015 Calendar - "This 2015 twelve-month calendar from Pomegranate features the wonderfully odd characters that appear in Edward Gorey's illustrations. In these images, fantastic creatures mingle with eccentric Edwardian folk in the strangest of situations. Inside this calendar you will find illustrations from the opening credits for the PBS series Mystery! , the books The Doubtful Guest, The Broken Spoke, more. Pomegranate calendars are printed with soy-based inks on FSC certified paper."

13 Days of Creepmas: Making Creepmas

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It’s December 1st, which means it's time to kickoff the 13 Days of Creepmas, where we inject some much needed holiday FEAR into the season! You can read more about the event and find a list of all blogs participating on the official Creepmas site…be sure to visit the other sinister sites that are participating, too!

For some reason I didn’t join in last year even though I was part of it in 2011 and 2012, but I am back this year and will be posting every day the first 13th days of December. Everything I share will be a way to spookify the season, from gothic gifts, to sinister sweaters, to gruesome gingerbread, to zombie Santas, to creepy carols!