Hallowe'en, and what you do at your old house...

[Wackyshack]

photos of last year. We had a late Halloween party to do for my son's social group. The boxes of decorations are still in the van.

got this idea from another yard haunt. Our skeleton fell and broke his arm so I put it in the dog's mouth.

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The yard in fog. We put real candles in jars for a real effect.

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he unnerved some kids... the demonic toy

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My friend's yard haunt.

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Friend's yard haunt.

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[Lily left the valley]

Great visuals in this thread.

We found out that Gardner does have actual door to door trick or treating here, since some places we've lived, they do the community party instead. We're trying to find some bits and pieces to use. We've moved so many times, we can't recall what we still have and what we left behind. I'm hoping I can find the Predator masks we have. Spouse used to do special effects work when we lived in California, and he traded for them back then. I at least found some of our glass mannequin heads, so I'm trying to think of something I can do with them in the windows of our three season porch. I have some leftover gels from when I did lighting design, and a bunch of IKEA clip lights, so I should be able to manage something.

We're the "front" door of our multi family, so hopefully we'll get at least a few if the decorations lead the way. We don't have a doorbell, so I'm looking for the roped wedding bells we got from my family (they were tied to my parents' car when they got married) so I can put them up with a "ring me" sign.

I'll post up some pics once we have something to show. Looking forward to seeing others folks' too!

[Daniel Meyer]

Several pics at the link of our Halloween this year:
http://theoldvictorian.com/2016/10/31/a ... halloween/

We started with over 80 pounds of candy and 200 glow-sticks...and gave it all away. That's the advantage of a living in the haunted house and having a yard full of cats, dragons, snakes, and spiders.

Halloween. The only time of year our 19th century dilapidated style is appropriate!

[phil]

I have never been much for the costumes and dolling up the house for it but I went and bought a stack of big huge chocolate bars. I really got a thrill out of dropping them in to the kids bags last year. Most other houses seem to just buy the downsized candy bars and they are mostly just packaging.

If I do that I give them a big handful. and I got some in case we run out. To me it's well worth the 30 to 50 bucks or so to see the look they give me when they see a decent chocolate bar. for some of the wee ones they feel like they struck gold or something. the parents are all neighbors and I had nice reactions from them as well. Sometimes I'm tempted to buy some toothbrushes and pitch one of those in too ,, lol

my street is so busy most avoid it so I can afford to hand out good candy. Im sure the houses a street back from the busy street get more kids. you can hardly even talk out there and wiht the rain, well I figure they arent' kids from too far away. maybe some of the others go to the old house neighborhoods because they do fit the theme.

Phil

[Lily left the valley]

I just finished putting up some hasty window dressing and glass door cover on the three season porch. Not proud of it, but I couldn't do nothing. So much is still in a box somewhere, so I just went with dead basic lights and a few heads I could find. Only spent maybe three hours on it, most of which was me trying to sort the Xmas lights out into colors to do each window a different one.

Trick or Treating is odd here. They have a two hour window (5-7p) for the non preschool kids. The wee ones they have go downtown where participating businesses handed out candy last Friday.

Not sure if spouse will be home in time for the start of it. I'm thinking of stealing his usual easy costume--a NASA jumpsuit. Our neighbor said they didn't get many kids last year, but their door is hard to spot because they're on the basement level.

I'll take pictures after dark and post them later.

[Lily left the valley]

I didn't realize until I took this shot that you can't see the heads very well from the sidewalk. Last minute deco faux pas.

[phil]

I ended up answeing the door twice, once I had two kids , and the second time I had 4.. now I can't stop eating all the leftover chocolate

[Lily left the valley]

I ended up answeing the door twice, once I had two kids , and the second time I had 4.. now I can't stop eating all the leftover chocolate

Spouse was binge eating the chocolate before Halloween, and I even waited buying it until the weekend prior to try to avert this. (Need to remember to find a good hiding place next year.)

Fortunately, he listed to my pleas, and when he asked around at work that day about how busy we might be, everyone said, "You only bought HOW much and you ate some already?!?" So he came home that day with a few more bags. Good thing he did, or we would have run out! We only had half a bag's worth of mixed types leftover, and here Trick or Treat lasts a mere two hours.

[Lily left the valley]

As we were driving home yesterday, I noticed one of our neighbors a block over already has a full blown decoration scheme set up for Halloween. It made me think of this thread, so here I am, resurrecting it for another year.

I did have a chat with a neighbor across the street this week, and she said plan on at least 200 trick-or-treaters candy wise. So now we have a rough idea of what to expect. This year should also be easier because we have a porch light, unlike last year, so folks will know to knock. Last year we ended up sitting on our steps so they knew it was ok to approach.

Sean found a neat trick someone did where they used TP rolls and cut out eyes, then put a glowstick in them and stash them in various bushes around the yard so it looks like eyes are watching from the darkness. We're thinking of adding that to whatever we come up with this year.

What are folks' plans? Did you start putting stuff out yet?

[awomanwithahammer]

The house we lived in for 25 years was off the street, and according to my daughter, the kids all thought it was haunted, even though we built it. We never, in the whole 25 years, had one trick-or-treater. We thought we might have some when we moved to town, but there haven't been more than 8 or 10, and it's gone down from that in the last couple of years. Admittedly, we don't do any real decorating, but we do leave the lights on. My husband, however, is always hopeful, so he buys all the candy. And then I eat it, so now he has to take it to his nursing students the next day.