Halloween is a special time in my little town. Every year dozens of houses put up elaborate decorations, set up elaborate spaces, and every year several thousand people wander our streets, almost everyone, young and old and even pets, dressed elaborate costumes.
At the center of its all is the Witches’ House, with its pumpkins, intricately carved, lining the pathway up to the witches themselves, who greet you with their cackling laughs. This year they had just under fifty pumpkins, not counting the mini-pumpkins A year or two ago it was above seventy. At 9:30 there was a still a line out into the street and a twenty-minute wait to get in the gate to the yard.
A block and a half away is the Garage Band House. Every ten minutes the garage door opens, smoke rolls out, and the band (a real band, a local favorite) plays the song “Monster Mash.” Then the door closes, ten minutes go by, and they do it again. They started at 5:30 and it went until around 10:00 pm. They must be crazy.
The Mushroom House is a new favorite, at the edge of town, about few minutes from the Garage Band House. All the mushrooms, all that Day-Glo color, a very relaxed place to hang and to stare amazed at the storage requirements for all of these non-collapsable, handmade decorations.
And so much more, from the Haunted House (a rival to the Witches House in popularity), to the street bar (serving White Russians for the adults, hot chocolate for the kids), to the Candy Tube House (COVID innovation where candy from a balcony is launched into a basket at ground level), to the Spin-the-Wheel House (a long tradition in our town, first at one house, then inherited by another when the first owner moved away), the friendly rivalry between houses only grows each year.
This year, for our own small contribution, we decorated our van with a Day of the Dead display and gave out candy for about three hours, from dusk until about 8:30 (about a 1000 people came by) when we started our exploration of the other houses. Lots of fun and so wonderful to see all of the inventive costumes.
