The scariest thing about Halloween decorations is that they exist at all
‘Tis the season when decapitated mummies and axe-wielding ghouls haunt the aisles of grocery stores and the lawns of our neighbors.
It’s ugly out there.
My kids like to visit the Halloween slivers of stores, where orange and black reign supreme and candy buckets have moving claws. Rows of plastic skeletons hang limply from hooks, fugitives from plastic graves where plastic worms fed on plastic flesh. Or maybe they were born in a Chinese factory and assembled by baffled people who must think Americans are pretty weird to want these things. Which scenario is scarier?
We visit. We do not buy.
It is strange to want to bring death to our doorsteps when the other eleven months of the year we pretend it doesn’t exist. In October, it’s cool to have your brains eaten by a zombie. Hang a skeleton from your front yard tree in March and you are a blazing creep. I wouldn’t borrow an egg from you in a pinch. I’d rather lay it myself or suffer from the vague disappointment of sadly un-sproingy cupcakes. Now that is Spooktacular.
I can’t get on board with over-the-top Halloween decorating. It’s icky. It’s tiresome. For example, nobody likes the song Monster Mash. It’s the Christmas Shoes of Halloween. Want to see something dreadful? It’s me, separating my ears from my head and the blood isn’t made from ketchup.
If you really want to scare me? Paint your house hot pink and keep a pit bull chained to the tree normally reserved for skeletons. Don’t mow.
The screams and moans coming from speakers propped in your open window do nothing to frighten me into thinking you have a dungeon in your basement. Planting that seed is unwise. That’s how rumors get started. If you get your morning paper while wearing a black bathrobe, you won’t be invited to June’s potluck barbeque. Mrs. Kravitz simply won’t have it.
I see your lawn marks the burial site of I.M. Bones, May He R.I.P. Then perhaps you should rethink the practice of letting your dog do her business out there? I.M. Bones is wishing he had prepaid for a spiffier place to spend eternity. At least his headstone wouldn’t be styrofoam.
But it’s fun! But it’s harmless! But it’s my money!
All those buts may be true. They won’t sway me into thinking the spider webs on your porch look good, though. There isn’t a human in history who has managed to make a faux spider web look impressive. Leave it to the real spiders, who are hunkered in corners slapping all eight of their knees at the folly of it all. Have you ever heard the sound of 160 eyes rolling? Blame it on the squeaky screen door. We all know the truth.
I bide my time. Soon, I won’t have to see tray-holding zombie butlers serving severed fingers on suburban porches.
Santa Claus is coming to town.
There is nothing obnoxious about him.
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We live in a creepy old almost-Victorian house. My husband has done a lot of stage design and spent his teen years pouring over horror movie makeup magazines. Halloween was MADE for us, theoretically, but having easily terrified children has really kept us reined in. And the funny thing NOW is that I find myself frowing at the really creative Halloween displays that other people set up: Don’t they know that it scares my kids? Heh.
“It is strange to want to bring death to our doorsteps when the other eleven months of the year we pretend it doesn’t exist.”
A most excellent question.
How do your kids react that you do not buy? We have a lot of true gnashing of teeth.
I completely agree! Putting rows of tombstones on your lawn and hanging a dead guy from a tree is just plain weird. I don’t get it at all!
[...] The scariest thing about Halloween decorations is that they exist … [...]
Lori—my kids understand. I am not a total sourpuss killjoy humbug. We carve jack-o-lanterns and we have a scarecrow, which does nothing to discourage crows from anything. In fact, they feel emboldened when they see him.
Halloween is all about costumes and candy for us, not creatures who want to eat our brains.
Growing up, we were never allowed to celebrate Halloween. To this day, my mom has rather choice words to say about it and those who do. My husband wasn’t raised that way, and as I got older and moved away, I, too, changed the way I view the holiday.
We trick-or-treat now with our daughter (which is a HUGE problem for my mom). I mean no disrespect to her, and it’s easier that she lives in a different state…
We celebrate the fun stuff, but we don’t do a lot of decorating. IF we have a party, we put up the stone castle wall coverings and get out the gargoyles, but that’s about it.
If you ever come to my house and see the cobwebs on the front porch, it’s because I use October as my slacker-month and don’t take the time to clean them off. It’s the only month out of the year where I get a break in the housekeeping department. ;)
Halloween is a way to process death and the unknown, through rituals and symbolgy, just that. But it is soooo much fun, love this time of the year.
We all women feel a little more witchy during halloween, let’s take advantage of it!
I love reading your thoughts.
I’m with you Gretchen. I don’t get into the ghoulish stuff either, but despite the scorn of many of my friends who choose not to celebrate the American holiday at all, we will do so with our daughter. I grew up with Halloween and don’t want to deny my daughter the fun of dressing-up and going door-to-door with her friends the way I did.
Our family doesn’t go the gory/scary/creepy route at Halloween either. The fun of Halloween is getting to be someone (or something) else for an evening, but imaginative fun doesn’t have to be morbid.
Did you hear about the man in LA who was slumped over in a chair on his balcony for a few days before anyone noticed he was dead? Neighbors in the apartment complex thought he was just a Halloween decoration. If people can walk past a real dead and rotting body for days, thinking it’s just festive decor, maybe the realistic corpse displays have gone a little too far. Ew.
I loooooooove Halloween decorations. That said, I don’t have rotting corpses and our festivities revolve around (what else?) pumpkins! :-)
I was horrified the first time our neighbors rigged up their front yard to be a graveyard and a murder scene with stabbed “bodies.” Avoiding video violence didn’t mean I wouldn’t have it right down the street, and cringe at the lightness with which some people treat the subject of murder and death. It’s there every year now.
I love costumes and candy, but hate Halloween and can’t wait for it to be over! Hate shopping and avoiding the startle-you sound offs plus grisliness. Hate not having a wholesome harvest festival to work and attend.
Halloween really has gone over the top in the last few years! What happened to just dressing up and getting candy?
I just like Peanuts and the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown What ever happened to simple trick or treating? It’s gotten way out of hand!!! It’s really creepy
[...] All about hallow’s eve I’ve established I am not a fan of bloody stumps on front porches. [...]