Cynthia Kuhn

It’s Halloween Season

The first year we lived in our current house, it felt as though we’d been transported to Disneyland for Halloween–people up and down the street decked out their homes with oversized decorations and all sorts of curious items that spewed mist or growled sporadically or otherwise scared trick-or-treaters. Spooky music was blasted from various houses and neighbors dressed in elaborate costumes. There was a fantastic joyful, over-the-top vibe in the air. We felt somewhat out of our element, given our low-key decor featuring a tiny pumpkin patch. In the following years, we experimented with an array of monsters, skull lights, and other things that came and went. Over time, families moved away and the carnivalesque vibe dwindled. But still we have our pumpkin patch.

It brings back so many memories: when our kids were younger, we’d celebrate for weeks leading up to Halloween. We’d attend fall festivals, run through corn mazes, enjoy hay rides, and make candy apples. We’d comb through the store aisles–trying on as many silly hats as possible along the way–until we found the perfect costumes. We’d carve pumpkins and roast the delicious seeds. Now the boys are older and no longer trick or treat or wear costumes. But still we have our pumpkin patch.

It’s nothing fancy, though once we propped up a sign that said “Sleepy Hollow Pumpkin Patch,” which gave it some literary flair, but said sign mysteriously disappeared the very same night [insert scary organ music and goosebumps]. There’s no art to the process: we just put a bunch of pumpkins in the garden. The first step is to add the Hanging Pumpkins pictured below. There are more to come–and the overall number seems to grow each year. Suffice it to say that by the 31st, our pumpkin patch will be overflowing. There’s something about this that lifts our spirits.

Perhaps it’s just taking a moment to be fanciful, to not think about all of the things on your to-do list that must be done. That’s something worth doing. Hope the pumpkins lift your spirits too.

Happy Halloween Season! Do you decorate and, if so, what is your favorite decoration? 

33 thoughts on “It’s Halloween Season”

  1. Our historic ByWard Market Street generally does not put up many Halloween decorations. A couple of mini pumpkins adorn the front door of the building across from mine. Bad idea…SATAN the black squirrel has been chowing down for breaking for several days. The holes in the pumpkin tops are very noticeable, lol.

    But there is a 20 foot skeleton in the more touristy ByWard Market Square (4 blocks from home).

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    3. Hi Grace: Oh my gosh, that squirrel is always into everything, isn’t he? I remember when you put some lovely plants on your porch and went on squirrel-watch. A 20-foot skeleton sounds pretty amazing!

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  2. When we lived in MA we had a spooky graveyard on our front yard. We used to get over 200 kids every Halloween. Here in FL we don’t get any kids most years. I buy candy every year just in case, something that my husband and I like.

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  3. I love your pumpkin patch! When the kids were little, we decorated both inside and out. I never had a favorite decoration. The whole thing was too much fun to pick one decoration over another! 🎃

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    2. Thank you so much, JC! So fun to decorate, agree!

      We do have some other assorted items that haven’t seen the light of day since the pumpkin patch took over (for example, creepy giant spiders that of course were picked out by the guys when they were little…I keep trying to donate them but no one will let me, ha).

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  5. We get some trick or treaters, so we do a little bit of decorating (nothing scary). Love your adorable pumpkin patch, Cyn!

    Currently, we have a pumpkin spider (it’s a thing) hanging around our house, so we inadvertently got a living decoration.

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  6. I’m a decorated as I get. I put some orange lights on my balcony (something I started in 2020) and have a few Halloween ornaments I put on a stand in my condo. Simple, but still fun.

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    1. We used to do it up pretty big, but quit decorating when our youngest was in high school. Nobody was trick-or-treating and as our kids grew up, so did all the other neighborhood kids. At around the same time, our Mainstreet started doing a big to-do, blocking off the street for a big town party, complete with folks from the senior center doing the Thriller dance! Lots of small town fun. And when we got Nala, she loses her mind every time the doorbell rings, so we keep lights off these days anyway.

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      3. Totally understand, Ellen and Becky. Husband tried to stop decorating this year (though I protested!)…however, on October 1st, the lovely neighbors asked when we were putting putting up the pumpkin patch and he reconsidered.

        In any case, if our town did a big to-do, I would LOVE that! You are lucky!

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  8. We started decorating for Halloween again this year, even tho we don’t get trick-or-treaters. We have some new young goblins in our family now, and they’re very excited. Fave decorations (did a bit of reinvesting this year): a doormat with a cute ghost that says, What’s up, boo?, a lovely wreath with black roses and eyeballs (ha), and a cool table runner and salt-and-pepper shakers featuring a pumpkin and a ghost. We also added a kitchen witch, who will be hanging around now for every holiday, ha.

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  9. We used to decorate for Halloween a lot (I did all of the work). Every year I added more. I did lights, spiders, skeletons, gravestones, light up pumpkins, real pumpkins, Halloween music from a boom box, smoke, etc. I put flickering candlesticks that I use during Christmas in the window and light up that night only after Thanksgiving. I dressed up like a witch and dressed my Golden like a lion with a mane. Then the neighbor kids all grew up and we had none. Then I got older and now we have lots of kids, but we sit in a hollow and don’t want the kids running down the hill or drive in the dark, so we turn the lights out. I do put up the Halloween flags and mailbox cover and Humphrey my life size skeleton will sit on the stoop in a chair along with a skeletal spider. I have a FANTASTIC Day of the Dead wreath that will be on the door. Last year we put a chair up at the top of the drive by the mailbox with Humphrey and a lit lantern and a bowl full of candy was in his lap. The first group came before dark and actually took photos with Humphrey. The HOA said if your lights are out, we won’t come down. They did anyway last year, and one kid fell down the hill and cried. But they all took off when I said the candy was at the top of the driveway. Hopefully the parents who were riding around in a golf cart, drinking, laughing and not watching their kids will pay attention this year. First time that happened, but we have new younger neighbors. When I was at my mother’s house in Harlingen, Texas, taking care of her when she was sick (she lived in a country club that is an oval with a street cut in between), I gave out 400 pieces of candy by 9:00 and still got kids. They used to truck them in on flatbeds from poorer areas. Now, what will I do with all of those decorations? Too old to be dragging everything up from the basement and then dragging them down. The stairs are getting to my knees. I even do less for Christmas than I used to.

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    1. Hi Madeleine, it sounds like you have had some wonderful celebrations! 400 kids, wow! And it’s great that you can still enjoy your decorations in the daytime throughout the season–even if you (have to) turn the lights out to keep kids safe on the actual night. 🙂

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  10. When the kids were little, we would go ALL OUT for Halloween. Our entire yard (which was spooky-forward even sans decor) was packed with all manner of slightly hilarious witches, skeletons, etc. The star: a giant inflatable spider that would periodically move as if it caught you in its (many–shudder) eyes.

    OH…we also had a candy butler who would recite quippy lines in an English accent whenever anyone would touch his bucket of candy. We still quote him!

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