Growing up my folks would build a haunted walkway for kids to walkthrough on their way to candy at the door. It started as a simple plywood structure with blacklights, painted with blacklight paint for fun, with an attached "cage" with rope bars my stepdad could reach through while wearing a werewolf mask.
Then, my stepsister left beauty school and donated her practice heads, which were given creepy cuts, splashed with paint, and mounted in a row in the walkway: 4 heads, and a cutout area where someone can stand and appear to be one of the wall heads. Nothing scares an 8 year old more than a cheery "Hi how ya doin'!?" from what they thought was a fake head. Endless enjoyment for myself and my teenage friends running the "haunted house" for my folks.
OK, first, how personal was that bit about burying the 12-footer 26 inches deep? (DO ITTTTTTTTTTTT)
Oddly enough, I think we are grandparent haunted. Decorations went up Saturday, though, so we were behind schedule (Sorry, I was exhausted and flying solo on 10/1). We inherited nearly all of the decorations from an elderly neighbor who admitted that she was too old to be taking boxes from storage, setting up, tearing down, etc. The biggest factor each year that motivates me to decorate is knowing that as she drives by she gets to see that her gift is being put to good use. The kids love it, too.
Sadly, we are in a neighborhood that is rapdily aging into fuddy-duddydom, so there's only like two or three other houses that do more than a sticker in the window.
At our house we put out a pumpkin. A single pumpkin - a nice one, but just one. It gets hollowed out and lit up with a real candle. We have neighbours who go full Star Wars, seriously overshadowing our very nice pumpkin. I keep hoping they'll sell their house and move, but so far no luck.
What about no decor, wait, shit it's 10/31 and a bunch of families with kids just moved into the building; better make a mad dash to CVS to get a bag of candy just in case?
October 1 is the beginning of Colored Lights and Sparkles All Winter Dammit Season at our house. It's a minimalist-ish approach: Halloween is orange lights around the door plus the cute light-up dogs in costumes from Target. The orange lights stay up through Thanksgiving, which would have a cute light-up turkey if I could find a suitable one. Weekend after Thanksgiving we swap to Christmas lights and Target light-up things. That stays up until King's Day, at which point the Mardi Gras lights and wreath go up. My house remains adorned until Ash Wednesday.
I think this classifies me in the holiday decor as seasonal affective disorder treatment category?
Look, I just want trick or treaters. Halloween rules, it is an adorable holiday, and i have always loved it. But in the 15 years since I graduated college I have gotten like 10 total trick or treaters. Across 3 cities, more than a dozen houses and apartments. Clearly I am doing something wrong.
The subtle, instagrammy house either 1) has no kids or 2) has seven kids, the parents make money doing tiktoks about how great having a billion kids is
My brother in law puts on a full haunted house every year in the front yard of his very normal suburban Long Island house - people come from all over to go through it, they were on the Rachel Ray show for it, he hires security to manage the line. Your description is absolutely perfect - just a super nice dude with a kinda weird hobby that he goes all out for
We’re very minimalist at the moment. We got a few pumpkins from our local Fancy Farm and some shitty looking spiderwebs. We considered getting a blow up something but it turns out our outside plug doesn’t connect to anything inside (it’s literally just a loose wire in our basement. Thanks previous owners!)
We have some pumpkins on our porch landing, but that is it, and I am fine with that. My wife and I are both teachers, we do not have the energy to go all out in decorating in fall. We barely can pull it together to do middling Christmas lights.
Growing up my folks would build a haunted walkway for kids to walkthrough on their way to candy at the door. It started as a simple plywood structure with blacklights, painted with blacklight paint for fun, with an attached "cage" with rope bars my stepdad could reach through while wearing a werewolf mask.
Then, my stepsister left beauty school and donated her practice heads, which were given creepy cuts, splashed with paint, and mounted in a row in the walkway: 4 heads, and a cutout area where someone can stand and appear to be one of the wall heads. Nothing scares an 8 year old more than a cheery "Hi how ya doin'!?" from what they thought was a fake head. Endless enjoyment for myself and my teenage friends running the "haunted house" for my folks.
OK, first, how personal was that bit about burying the 12-footer 26 inches deep? (DO ITTTTTTTTTTTT)
Oddly enough, I think we are grandparent haunted. Decorations went up Saturday, though, so we were behind schedule (Sorry, I was exhausted and flying solo on 10/1). We inherited nearly all of the decorations from an elderly neighbor who admitted that she was too old to be taking boxes from storage, setting up, tearing down, etc. The biggest factor each year that motivates me to decorate is knowing that as she drives by she gets to see that her gift is being put to good use. The kids love it, too.
Sadly, we are in a neighborhood that is rapdily aging into fuddy-duddydom, so there's only like two or three other houses that do more than a sticker in the window.
At our house we put out a pumpkin. A single pumpkin - a nice one, but just one. It gets hollowed out and lit up with a real candle. We have neighbours who go full Star Wars, seriously overshadowing our very nice pumpkin. I keep hoping they'll sell their house and move, but so far no luck.
What about no decor, wait, shit it's 10/31 and a bunch of families with kids just moved into the building; better make a mad dash to CVS to get a bag of candy just in case?
October 1 is the beginning of Colored Lights and Sparkles All Winter Dammit Season at our house. It's a minimalist-ish approach: Halloween is orange lights around the door plus the cute light-up dogs in costumes from Target. The orange lights stay up through Thanksgiving, which would have a cute light-up turkey if I could find a suitable one. Weekend after Thanksgiving we swap to Christmas lights and Target light-up things. That stays up until King's Day, at which point the Mardi Gras lights and wreath go up. My house remains adorned until Ash Wednesday.
I think this classifies me in the holiday decor as seasonal affective disorder treatment category?
Look, I just want trick or treaters. Halloween rules, it is an adorable holiday, and i have always loved it. But in the 15 years since I graduated college I have gotten like 10 total trick or treaters. Across 3 cities, more than a dozen houses and apartments. Clearly I am doing something wrong.
The subtle, instagrammy house either 1) has no kids or 2) has seven kids, the parents make money doing tiktoks about how great having a billion kids is
My brother in law puts on a full haunted house every year in the front yard of his very normal suburban Long Island house - people come from all over to go through it, they were on the Rachel Ray show for it, he hires security to manage the line. Your description is absolutely perfect - just a super nice dude with a kinda weird hobby that he goes all out for
What if your house is a mix of ALL OF THESE?
We’re very minimalist at the moment. We got a few pumpkins from our local Fancy Farm and some shitty looking spiderwebs. We considered getting a blow up something but it turns out our outside plug doesn’t connect to anything inside (it’s literally just a loose wire in our basement. Thanks previous owners!)
The one spiderweb on a bush house! Totally haunted. My dog hasn't wanted to walk past that house for 2 weeks.
We have some pumpkins on our porch landing, but that is it, and I am fine with that. My wife and I are both teachers, we do not have the energy to go all out in decorating in fall. We barely can pull it together to do middling Christmas lights.