Halloween – A Neighborhood Haunting

Posted on November 3, 2019 by

29 Comments

Lighted Halloween display - 2019

All of the holidays are special times for us and Halloween is no exception. Anytime we can access our inner child, we jump at the chance. Frank & I worked hard on the house decor the weekend before Halloween, however a torrential storm came in on Monday & took out most of what we had done. With a rainy forecast for the week, we didn’t want to do more and have to redo & redo & redo. So we picked up the rest and waited for All Hallows Eve to finish decorating. On Halloween, Frank worked all day on the display, while I worked until 4pm. The majority of this was done the last 2 hours before the first victims arrived.

Our neighbor, 2 doors down has had the best free Halloween display in all of Jacksonville for the past 10 years. He sold his house this year & moved out of town. We usually had between 200-300 kids who trick-or-treat in our neighborhood because our neighbor would blast our haunted houses on social media, Halloween forums and run ads on Craigslist. We missed him this year and so did the rest of the neighbors and hordes of trick or treaters.

All that being said, we had an awesome Halloween. We had visits from Godzilla, T-Rex, Men in Black, Wonder Woman, The Frozen Cast, Batman, Lady Bug, Minnie Mouse, Dorothy, Spiderman & many ghouls & zombies. Total, we had 190 trick-or-treaters from age 1-18 years old. If you count the parents, we were well over 250 visitors. Many of whom mentioned how much they enjoyed and appreciated how we decorated for the occasion.

We love the decorating & the occasional spook. A few years ago, my hubby put on this mask that was really scary with a lot of scarring. This little blond headed girl, about 3 or 4 years old, came up to him and said, “what happened to your face?”, in this really sweet voice. He told her he had an “owie”. She looked up at him and said, “can I give you a hug?”. It was by far one of the sweetest moments ever! He gave her a big hug & she went on her candy collecting way.

Skeleton family photo booth lit up by rotating orange lights.

Every year we set up our version of a “Halloween family” photo booth for the parents & kids to take selfies. It’s always quite popular. This isn’t just about getting candy! It’s about sharing a night that kids look forward to every year. If the decor is not enough, I lure them into my spider web with lots of good candy. Left overs, come to me in the end.

The bone collector with his skeleton staff & bone cart.
The Bone Collector roaming the streets of the neighborhood. (Yes, this is my hubby)
Wednesday Addams in her 50's.

2019 – Wednesday Addams – I stayed in character the entire day at work, but because of the heat, I was down to my skeleton t-shirt & shorts for the evening trick-or-treaters. It was still 80 F (26.66 C) at 8pm.

If you didn’t read “Why I Love Halloween” & see the past 5 year preview of my quirky costumes, you can check it out here.

Category: halloween, Holidays, UncategorizedTags: , , , , , , , , ,

29 Comments on “Halloween – A Neighborhood Haunting”

  1. I’m sorry about the crazy weather. Your decorations look amazing! I love what you both did. That was a lot of hard work. Your costumes look so good, too! The storms hit us Halloween afternoon – right at trick-or-treating time so we had to stay in.

    Liked by 1 person

    • That is pretty cool too that you have all those kids. Sorry you froze. Wish I could have had my costume on, but if only Halloween was Friday night. The front came in the next morning.

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    Liked by 2 people

  8. You were not exaggerating, Lisa! I’m glad you had a fun Halloween (we had 2 (!) trick-or-treaters–no kids in the neighborhood, and it was cold, maybe 20-some degrees, as opposed to your 80).

    Liked by 2 people

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    • Thanks! It has gotten bigger and better every year. Not tonight! I just made up some goodie bags and took them to the neighbor kids. Lights out, movie & popcorn tonight! Doesn’t seem right! 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      • the families in our neighborhood just did trick or treating on their own street. our street had a little parade, and neighbors had candy at the end of their driveways. Very low key; it was over by 4:30. No one came to our door – very different…

        Liked by 1 person

      • That’s better than nothing I suppose. I made up a couple of goodie bags and took them to the kids down the street. One has cerebral palsy, but he comes to my house every year. I took one down to him and another older boy that lives a couple of doors down. He had a big smile on his face as he thanked me. It made me feel good! Then it started raining as it got dark and didn’t stop until this morning. 🙂 I didn’t even get to see the full moon. The Blue Moon of Halloween that hasn’t been here since 1944. Ugh!

        Liked by 1 person

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