09/01/2026
āI go out walkin' after midnight
Out in the moonlight
Just like we used to do, I'm always walkin'
After midnight, searchin' for you (wa-wa-walking, wa-wa-walking)ā
š«šš¬Walkinā After Midnight š¬š«š
8oz candle & 2.4 oz wax melt
Dominant scent notes: Snickers, assorted candy, caramel, apples, marshmallow, fluff, and potential cavities ļæ¼
Some scents begin with fragrance notes. This one began with a song.
Walkinā After Midnight pays tribute to the Patsy Cline song we both loveāthe one I hummed over and over as I labeled every candle. We had more than a hundred Halloween-themed names and just as many ideas for the label, but this one felt like us.
The scene was inspired partly by Hell, Michigan. The iron gate on the label is modeled after the real āGates of Hell,ā opening onto a shadowy street where porch lights glow through the fog and old houses wait beneath the moon. A group of pin-up-style young women are leaving the neighborhood arm in arm, carrying vintage Halloween buckets overflowing with candy. Since we both hope to get pin-up tattoosāmaybe even this yearāthe artwork couldnāt fit our personalities or Gypsy Sisters branding any better.
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, and at our house it has grown into a full family event. Last year, we celebrated together, dressed as quilted witches and walked my neighborhood with the kids. It brought back memories of the many Halloween streets from my own childhood.
Some years, my brothers and I trick-or-treated door to door in our Warren neighborhood. Other years, we went to my auntās home in Dearborn, my grandparentsā house where my mother grew up, the Eastpointe neighborhood where my parents met and fell in love, or my uncleās home back in Warren. We switched it up, but each place held the same Halloween magic.
My aunt, an incredibly talented professional seamstress, designed our earliest costumes herself. She even made our trick-or-treat bags from vintage pillowcases, stitching each of our initials onto them with pieces of scrap fabric. Those handmade bags were dragged from porch to porch until they were heavy with sweetsāand the promise of a few future cavities.
The two of us grew up with different versions of Halloween. Hers was more small-town celebrations and trunk-or-treat gatherings, while mine was the traditional door-to-door adventure. She recall the time when Ben Franklin still existed in downtown Grayling her mother would assign different time frames based on her and her sisterās age and they would have only that much time to grab as many penny candies as they could because walking door-to-door was not common in a small town like grayling and she didnāt feel it was safe. Yet when we compared childhood stories, we discovered that we had worn many of the same costumes over the years. Different towns, different streets, but the same excitement of becoming someoneāor somethingāelse for one October night.
A true Halloween night was a world all its own. The air smelled like damp fallen leaves and chimney smoke. Porch lights flickered beside carved pumpkins while spooky, scary skeletons rattled from trees and railings. Children dressed as witches, ghosts, vampires, monsters and homemade oddities hurried along the sidewalks, stopping only long enough to admire one anotherās costumes.
At the end of the night, we would spill our treasures across the floor. Chocolate, chewy caramels, tart fruit candies, lollipops and sticky treats rolled into colorful piles. We traded with our siblings, guarding our favorites while trying to bargain away everything we didnāt like. Then came the inevitable ādad taxāāmy father reaching into our bags and helping himself to a handful of whichever treats he liked best.
There was a darker piece of nostalgia woven into those memories, too. We both remember taking our candy to the local VFW to have it inspected with metal detectors before we were allowed to eat it. Strange as it sounds now, it was simply another part of Halloween: costumes, pillowcase bags, mountains of candyā¦and making sure every piece was safe.
Today, the tradition continues at my home in Roscommon. Our neighborhood has become one of the areaās favorite trick-or-treating destinations. Every year, we host a family party and hand out more than 1,200 pieces of candy as the street fills with costumed children. We watch the parade of tiny witches, superheroes, skeletons, movie monsters and wonderfully creative homemade characters pass beneath the porch lightsāeach child creating memories they may someday tell around a table of their own.
Walkinā After Midnight captures that one magical night when the ordinary world disappears after sunset. The air is filled with chocolate, tart fruity candy, gooey caramel apples and the sugary treasure of a Halloween bag filled to the top. It is childhood excitement, handmade costumes, candy trading, family parties, glowing jack-oā-lanterns and footsteps traveling beneath a moonlit sky.
It is a little spooky, a whole lot nostalgic and unmistakably ours.
Because sometimes the sweetest memories are made while walkinā after midnight.
ļæ¼
