Decoration Madness! (Oct. 27, 2011)

You know I like festive stuff. I’m an artist. I like decorating and personalizing and laughing and signs of enthusiasm. So it’s no surprise that lately I’ve become obsessed with Halloween.

I’ve been busy, hitting the streets, searching for the most imaginative and spooky Halloween decorations around. There are plenty of people who share my Halloween gusto and decorate their houses to show their spirit. And special props go to people who manage to decorate their apartments for Halloween, as they are dealing with the challenge of decorating a third-floor window or a small balcony, and they also have limited storage space in which to stash decorations the other eleven months of the year.

Why do I dig this holiday so much? I like carving pumpkin faces, creating costumes and of course, CANDY! But what seals the deal is that there’s such variety in how people interpret this holiday. Costumes can be scary, funny, political, cute…there are many options. (Christmas decorations I love, too, but with that holiday there’s a bit of a formula for how to celebrate it.) With Halloween, anything goes! It has a playful vibe, and is just fun. It’s strictly optional and the people who bother to decorate for it or get together a costume—well, I just appreciate their passion! Here are a few of my favorite decorations:

Packing a lot of punch in a small apartment patio space. Kudos!

Recently we visited a legendary pumpkin patch tucked into the countryside about an hour from here. The patch itself is huge. The pumpkins are huge. Sometimes the crowds are huge. This time was our seventh annual visit and despite its being too hot (89 degrees!) we had fun.

Some people visit the patch in costume and one woman pulled a wagon with a familiar figure in back: Sponge Bob! Her two daughters were wearing outfits made almost entirely of crochet. Of course, I had to stop her and ask if she’d made them (yes) and would it be okay if I took a photo of Bob (yes again). It must have taken a long time to crochet a whole dress for her pre-teen daughter, dressed as Alice in Wonderland. Her younger daughter was dressed as Sponge Bob and the boxy figure in the wagon was the upper half of her costume. I wish I’d taken a close-up of the costume but you’ll get the idea. So cool!

This one is not too scary but gets points for cuteness:

This one also scores high because of the sheer number of decorations:

These home-owners always go all out for holidays:

These next two photos are from a nearby street where several of the neighbors go all out and create a very scary environment, complete with haunted house.

However you celebrate, have a very fun and spooky Halloween!