Photo via Twitter.com/FashionIsland

One day after Halloween, still spooked from the sugar shock of a high-calorie haunting, SoCal shoppers were asked Thursday to digest a 92-foot Christmas tree, and all the gift-wrapped casseroles it implies.

The OC Register reports that 10 workers spent three hours unloading a half-century old white fir for a mall holiday display at Newport Beach's Fashion Island.

The towering tree trekked from Mount Shasta early on Nov. 1 and began the transformation from carbon dioxide-eating conifer into ornamented showpiece.

The OC tree, one of the tallest installations in the country, officially goes up mid-month and will be used for firewood and mulch when it comes down in January.

The 100 foot Christmas tree just arrived this morning all the way from Mount Shasta! Let th @ Fashion Island instagr.am/p/Rf96BmF_Qb/

— Fashion Island (@FashionIsland) November 1, 2012

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Image via Hampshire.edu

Attention, sexy xenophobes!

In an effort to prevent widespread small mindedness this Halloween, Hampshire College — the rumored "Shaggy" of the Five Schools — has developed an anti-racist costume checklist aimed at making aware the culturally misguided, blindly intolerant, shamefully ignorant or just plain careless.

Before you wreck your respectable self, check your deplorable self against the criteria below. Look in the mirror and ask a few of these questions, lest you spend the night bounding your candy-coated bigotry door-to-door.

Pre-packaged costume offenders are easy to spot, with words like, "traditional," "ethnic," "colonial," "cultural," "authentic" and "tribal" found in the description. 

RELATED: American Dental Association hopes to stop "zombie mouth" with healthy Halloween campaign

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Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A gang member was found guilty yesterday of stabbing a young man to death outside a Halloween party in La Habra in 2009.

Steven Salvador Hernandez stabbed 18-year-old Joshua Mora-Rodriguez in the neck with a knife while two co-defendants beat him during an argument outside the La Habra house party on Halloween night. Mora-Rodriguez, the son of two police detectives, bled to death in the street.

A Santa Ana jury found 19-year-old Steven Salvador Hernandez guilty of second-degree murder and “street terrorism” on Thursday, according to Orange County prosecutors.

Prosecutors say Mora-Rodriguez had no gang affiliation, had just graduated from high school, and was preparing to join the Army.

Hernandez faces 15 years to life in state prison.

The two co-defendants have been charged in the crime and are scheduled for trial later this month. The L.A. Times says they are accused of hitting the victim with fists and bats.

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