Wednesday, January 6, 2010

How did the Halloween House get started?

What on earth do these people think they are doing with this holiday????
simple: celebrating with friends!


When my family began celebrating halloween more than the adverage human, we decided that we would never do anything gorey, and that it should be a fun, and cute holiday. My dad is a chemical engineer who likes to tinker, and my mom os one crazy lady who loves kids, and loves the idea of halloween and costumes. She supplies the ideas. Where do I come in? I am the child labor, the ideas, the ladder holder, the volunteer recruiter, and the kid in the family. Three in a halloween loving family cannot always be enough to get the job done, so that's where the volunteers, also known as my friends, come into play.
the normal family may hang some lights, carve a pumpkin, buy one bag of candy, go to the costume store, and go to the halloween parade. My family: Set up the graveyard, set up the witch, set up the ghosts, set up and reapair the eyeballs, climb on the roof to install eyeballs and spiders, put up skeletons,put the cement spider out, buy 5 bags of candy or toys, bring friends over to dip chocolate prtzles, cook apple cider, make jello, get the fire pit ready, set up the cars, call the church down the street to ask for parking spaces( thank you so much!), donate money to the church for their help.... the list goes on and on. The first year we recieved only 5 trick-o-treaters. This year we can easily count 50 kids and thier closest family and friends in the yard at one time. There is almost always a police car out front to control traffic, and many photographers.
We have one family who makes the trip every year from texas to Virginia to vist family and our house. People start visiting the house in early september/ late agust and keep coming untill a couple days after halloween. Yes, it takes that long. The nieghbors have given up giving out candy at their house, and they now take a lawn chair and hang out at our house.
When we get a child that is scared of something, there are many family members standing around to show the child how something works, or how to pet the giant kitty. Since our yard is reletivly flat, this is a walk through and interactive yard. You can walk through Cedar Lane Cemetary, pet the Cement spider, walk in front of the witch to create a burst of fog from her cauldron, bounce the eyeballs, and of course get some snacks and drinks! For the past two years we have laid bubble wrap on the side walk... that's gone in about 20 min! the first trick-o-treaters come as early as 5 and stay out as late as 12 pm. Even the rain doesn't stop us, although it does slow down buisness!

In the end, we have a kid friendly enviornment ( anyone with a REALLY scary mask is asked to take it off), and we have the best ( in my and my friend's minds) yard around that the youngest child to the oldest adult can appreciate. We hope to see you next halloween!

2 comments:

  1. Hahahaha that is such a cool memory!!!! I loved the Halloween house! When I was little, I always begged my mom to take me there for halloween trick-or-treating! (it was always to far away :( ) Keep up the decorations fred!

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  2. gotcha, and i will!!! gotta have fun with it!

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