Decorations
Jennifer Flaten

I unearthed the Halloween decorations, today. It took me awhile. When we moved in some idiot, yeah, that would be me, thought it would be a good idea to shove the all the decorations wily-nily into the back storage area.

Hey, it was a 90-degree day in July when we moved in. The holidays seemed a very long way off. I figured I would have plenty of time to organize and arrange the boxes.

My how time flies doesn’t it. Not only are the boxes in exactly the same place as the day I put them there, but the holidays are practically over, according to retail.

As much as I love how the house looks all “ghoul-ified” I really didn’t want move any more boxes. Thanks to this last move, I have an intense aversion to cardboard.

Still, if I wanted to stop the chorus of “When are we going to decorate?” which was on a continuous loop and had been since September 25 I needed to get the decorations out.

After fortifying myself with a cookie bar, we were all out of cupcakes; I headed into the storage room of doom.

One rousing game of box Tetris, I found all the Halloween stuff. Let me clarify, I managed to find all the outside decorations. The inside stuff is still under a box, that I can only assume contains an actually live deer based on its weight.

Yes, for your information I have so many decorations that I need to differentiate between outside and inside decorations.

The storage space is tucked under the basement stairs, so after I was done I was ready to audition for the part of Quasimodo. On the bright side, I don’t need a costume for Trick or Treat.

Rummaging through the boxes, I discovered several items didn’t survive the movie, but that is the great part of Halloween if the skeleton is missing an arm, you can still use it. In fact, it probably looks creepier.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the decapitated light up Thanksgiving turkey, I won’t get ooohs and ahhs if I put him outside, I might even get complaints from the neighbors.

Contrary to what the kids think (they think we have the spookiest house on the block-and we do just not because of decorations), our decorations aren’t scary, unless you are a stylist for Martha Stewart, in that case, our decorations will send you into cardiac arrest.

We don’t have a theme; we like to mix it up. We have an adorable light up Snoopy in a pumpkin, which is standing next to a hideous floating ghoul and some of our stuff is thrift store finds.

Once everything is all set up, I always want to get more, but that is impossible because you can’t get Halloween stuff at the stores anymore, it is all Christmas stuff. 

Actually, that gives me a great idea. Since, retail insists on rushing the holidays, I think we should combine all three holidays, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, into one mega holiday.

Imagine how much easier it would be to decorate. Think about you could have Zombie Santa Claus rampaging through your front yard. Pilgrim elves and Pumpkin reindeer would join him.

You could hand out stuffing balls for Trick or Turkey. We’ll celebrate it on November 15; no reason, just like that date. Imagine it, in just one day you could be all done with three holidays.  Who’s with me?