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.