Spooky Moon

2018

In 2018, we were between houses. The landlord at the Silver Spring house had pulled a shitty on us. Worse move even than the one from Florida. So for Halloween, we were in an airbnb, and all our decorations were in storage. We ran out and bought our pumpkin family and some path lights. I don’t think we got any kids, but it was good to decorate a little.

2019-20 Frederick

Just before the plague, we settled in Frederick, MD. We were in a townhouse with a tiny yard, so I couldn’t do much, but I could decorate the garage. This is the first year I opened and decorated the garage and handed out treats from there. It worked so well, I never looked back.

And then, the plague hit. In 2020, I skipped. I thought it was the smart thing to do. By the next year, we’d moved to Virginia.

2021 – Present in Glen Allen

We’ve never lived anywhere as long as we’ve lived here in Virginia. It’s nice to settle in, though I know we’ll likely end up moving again soon. We have become known as a Halloween house. Every year our neighbors anticipate the raising of the giant cat, and on the night, we open the garage with some new decorative setup.

That first year, though, was still the plague times. I didn’t want to skip again, so I built a very silly contraption with a very silly monster, and rolled Kinder Joy eggs down a chute and into his mouth. I had speakers set up to a mic so the monster could talk. A few kids thought it was automated and tried to say “trick or treat” multiple times. It was a lot of fun. The setup is best seen in video:

2022 was a light display.

In 2023, I’d collected enough Lemax to do a display of everything villagey. After that, I actually got rid of the Lemax because it’s crap. It’s pretty, but you can’t breath on it wrong without it breaking. I still have more sturdy pieces by Department 56 and Bradford Exchange. The village was a big hit.

2024 was miscellaneous with a lot of skulls:

Finally, this year I brought out the blow molds:

Next year, I want to get my physical issues fixed so I can BUILD THINGS AGAIN.

2010-12

We weren’t in the type of apartments that had room for decorations, but in 2012, I took advantage of the apartment club house to throw a dark carnival themed party. I took inadequate pictures. I don’t want to post a bunch of pics of my friends, but let me just say they understood the assignment, and looked great.

2013-15: The Florida Years

Our neighborhood in Florida was full of retirees, and got almost no kids. Nonetheless, I was ready for them! In 2013 I probably did more outside, but here is just the wreath I made.

In 2014, I started doing up the foyer so it looked magical and spooky when I opened the door.

I also built The Judge, who, sadly, was ruined by a shitty moving company.

In 2015, the outside was the same, and I did another foyer.

2016-7 Silver Spring, MD

The biggest yard I’d had in my life, and I went nuts. The display is similar both years. I built a mausoleum with a projection inside, there was a projection in the garage, and every window was lit and spooky.

Those were the best years for yard displays. I want to get back to that level of build.

Next time, we may or may not get to the present.

I thought it would be fun to go through the years of Halloweens that I have in my photo file. There’s not as much as you would expect, and some of the photos are…not good. I was going to do this all in one go, but I was boring myself, so I thought I’d better break it up.

20th Century

I don’t have much from this time. I tried to throw a party once, and I thought I took pictures, but nobody came, so it was sad anyway. It wasn’t that I didn’t have friends. I just didn’t know how to get them to come to a party. No worries, I threw great parties later.

This is 1978. I just turned 15, and I have an 18-year-old boyfriend (not pictured) who doesn’t know it. To his credit, he dumped me immediately when he found out. On the left is my friend Cheryl as a cat, and I am a witch, holding my chihuahua-dachshund familiar. Cheryl introduced me to Anne Rice, bless her.

This is me one of the few times I had glorious hair. 1982 and I’m a witch again, holding my new familiar, Geddy.

2003

There’s a whole lot of nothing until the 2000s. I was pretty unstable, living in tiny places. Also, I was trying to be an “adult” and loving Halloween was “for kids.” In other words, I had a very long stupid phase.

In 2003, I finally decide I don’t care if I have a yard or not. I cobbled together some kind of stand out of broomsticks, through a vintage wedding dress (I still have it!) on, and behold: Deadalina.

2006

2006 was a turning point. We’d bought our first house, and I had a yard! Not only that, I did the decor for a party where I used to work as well.

2007-8

In 2007, my personal blog, frykitty.com, says: “I can’t believe I didn’t decorate for Halloween. Just tooooo busy. But I have candy! Come take it!”

In 2008 we were struggling like everyone else, and soon to lose the house. Like everyone else. I probably decorated at home, but most of my energies went into an Egyptian-themed party where I used to work. Yes, they asked me back again, but this was the last time I agreed to it.

Some of it was good, and some of it was…well.

2009

In 2009, we were living in a tiny, crappy apartment, but we had some leftover from cleaning out my retirement to survive, and I decided to do something I’d never done: a solo road trip. Not like we could do much for Halloween. B looked after the critters while I headed for Sedona, AZ. I decided the camera on my phone was good enough, so I didn’t take a separate camera. Regret of a lifetime.

Here’s a sorta spooky pic of Elmer Long’s Bottle Tree Forest. Elmer was still around at the time, and I had tea with him and the missus.

Tune in next time for creepy dolls, mausoleums, and giant cats!

We had 53 trick-or-treaters this year, down from about 85 last year. I hear there is a new neighborhood behind Target that was fire, so I’m guessing that’s what sucked away our kids. Gonna drive down there later. I just want to talk.

I was going to do a retrospective on past Halloween displays, but I was missing some stuff. Then I found it on Flickr, of all places, so I’m waiting to get a link to download my archive. Short version: a couple days.

Here was last night’s setup, showing off the blowmolds.