A Young Girl's Fancy Turns to Halloween?

Now that my daughter's birthday has passed, my thoughts inevitably turn toward Halloween. We're a Halloween family. Some people decorate like crazy for Christmas, and we decorate to a point, but we are the definitely the Griswolds of Halloween.

I have Halloween magazines, I make Halloween food, I usually put on a costume to hand out candy, and we decorate. And decorate. Inside and out. Mostly out. We make some of our decorations, but I'm always on the lookout for unusual stuff in the stores, too. This year, I want to try a few ideas I saw on Pinterest for outdoor Halloween decorations. Mostly I want to make the dancing ghosts painted with glow-in-the-dark paint. I think they would look creepy and cool scattered throughout our yard.

I'm usually not a fan of those giant inflatable lawn decorations, but we have (what I think) is the coolest inflatable for Halloween. It's GIANT, probably 10 or 12 feet in length, and it's the grim reaper driving a horse-drawn pumpkin coach. The pumpkin has a face that reminds me of the Grinch when the Grinch smiles. It also has motion sensors, so when someone walks by, the horse does a creepy neigh/whinny, and the reaper says, “You're next. AHAHAHAHAHA!” When we get the little trick or treaters, I always warn the parents about it, because I've seen many terrified little ones get taken by surprise, and then cry. I don't want to make the little ones cry. I usually don't warn the older ones; it's fun to see them jump because it's loud, and unexpected. And they don't usually cry.

Halloween is the only time of the year I don't mind spiders. Ooooh, I still don't like the real ones, but I love to decorate with artificial ones. I don't use that artificial webbing anymore though. Oh yes, it totally adds to the creepy factor, but I still had it on my bushes for Easter. Have you ever tried to get that stuff off of rose buses or holly bushes? No? It's like sacrificing yourself to the spider gods slowly and painfully.

Mostly, I'm a fan of witch's hats, though. Anything with a witch hat that I see, I have to buy. My friends even buy me witchy stuff that they see while they are out. I have several signs inside and outside that are variants of “Idle Brooms Will Be Toad”, or “Broom Parking Only”. I have a sign that's in my kitchen year 'round that says “Don't Make Me Call the Flying Monkeys”.

Tomorrow I'll probably be on Pinterest creating my supply lists. We usually start decorating for Halloween around October 1^st.