Decorating for Halloween

It is September 1st and the stores are stocking up on their Halloween inventory. Is it too soon to start taking out my Halloween Stuff?
Don't think so.
This year I will post the process of how I decorate my house from start to finish. This should be fun.
Hope all of you start getting excited and inspired about ways to have fun this Halloween!!!
Best of luck and do share your ideas with us.

Boney Island in Sherman Oaks California.

So for those of you who live in California and don't know what "Boney Island" is here is a you tube video about this great place. It was a great inspiration for me to start my haunts and share the joy with the neighborhood. I think Halloween Haunts are so much fun. It is the only true opportunity to open your house to your neighbors and get to know each others family's.

Classic Horror Films to Watch

Halloween time is the perfect time to watch scary movies. Here is a list of the top 15 scariest movies and horror classics.
Buy or Netflix these classics and invite a friend or two so you won't be too scared.

15 Scariest Classic Films to Watch:
1)The Shining
2)The Exorcist
3)Halloween
4)The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
5)The Last House on the Left
6)A Nightmare on Elm Street
7)Silence of the Lambs
8)Night of the Living Dead
9)Child's Play
10)Jaws
11)Alien
12)The Ring
13)Evil Dead
14)28 Days Later
15)Scream

Here is a clip to put you in the mood for Classic Horror Film Watching.

Its that time of year again!!!!!!!!

Its that time of year again and Halloween is just around the corner. I have so many ideas lurking in my head of how I want to decorate this year. If all goes well, I will make it bigger and scarier than before.
I want my trick er tr eaters to walk a longer path before they get to the treats. Is this mean of me? I'm not sure, but I think a lot of them really enjoy the trills.
I noticed that stores are bringing out the Harvest season decorations, but we want the real stuff to come out. The scary, creepy decorations they have in their stock rooms. Who knows what they will come up with this year.
Last year they came up with the ground foggers. I remember when most Halloween fanatics had to make their own ground foggers that chill the fog so it stayed low on the ground. Hopefully this year I will buy one of those. I have been holding off on that, thinking one fogger is enough.
I did manage to get a screamer last year on clearance after Halloween, and this will be my first year showcasing that.
I have to start taking my stuff out of storage and organizing my things. But I just don't want to get too ahead of myself, because Santana winds ruin my decorations every year.
I cant wait to hear from you and your ideas as well, so please post on this site if you want to share some ideas of your own.

Halloween 2008 Pictures

Since I am not a professional photographer and most of these pictures were taken with flash, you really don't get the special effects of being there in person. The picture above was taken without a flash so you could envision what it was like on this spooky night.

Here is the same scene with the flash. I realize that the perfect lighting at night makes all the difference in the world when creating a spooky scene. We got lots of compliments on our efforts. And we always have fun decorating.

Our butler is always a sensation. When the fog is surrounding him, people can't tell if he is real or not. Especially cause he has great effects, like his eyes move and his chest moves with his breath. He is really scary. Plus he is as tall as my husband.

The girls really enjoyed handing out candy this year. More than trick'or treating. They are growing up fast.

My friend and neighbor loves to splash blood all over and create a creepy scene.

Here I am with our butler.

Our creepy neighbor. She is spooky looking.

These are our handsome neighbors who are always matching costumes. So cute and romantic.

This year I did not dress up that much. I set up my Halloween decorations in one day and took them down on Sunday. It was quicker and easier than other years. I guess I have more practice now. And all the trick'or treaters had so much fun coming into our Haunted House.

With the economy the way it is I did not buy any decorations this year. I think that more imagination with using what you have is key. Especially when costumes come to mind. I also did not take many pictures, but here are the ones I did take.

History of Halloween

My closest friends know that I am fascinated by Halloween. I just love the fact that you can be who you want to be on this special time of the year. But How did this tradition begin? Who were the first crazies, (like myself) that felt is was humorous or good fun to get dressed up and go door to door for tricks or treats. Did they really threat their neighbors into submission by scaring them with their weird costumes into giving them treats. It is all perplexing to me, since I don't remember studying this in our History classes while growing up in school.
So I had to dig down to find out what the true origin of this fascinating time of my growing years and now adult fascination.

So it turns out that today's Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festivals known as Samhain (Irish pronounced: saun). This festival was apparently a celebration of the harvest season in the Gaelic culture, and also known as the "Celtic New Year".
According to the wikipedia, the ancient Gaels believed that on this day, October 31, was the "boundary for the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops." In turn the Gaels would start bonfires on this festival, where the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. And they would wear costumes and masks so that they could calm these evil spirits. Pretty cool if you ask me.

What about the History of the name Halloween?
The whole history of the name is complex but goes something like this:
The term Halloween is short for All-hallow-even, as it is the eve of "All Hallows' Day", also known as "All Hallows' Day", also known as "All Saints'Day". Which in turn has been incorporated in to the"Feast of the Lemures". Lots of names for a religious day of festivities in that stems from various northern European Pagan traditions.
I wonder if this is the same as "el dia de los muertos" in Mexico. I am not sure on this but what I do understand it was a day that the Church celebrated as the Vigil of All Saints.

So what about the great symbols related on this wondrous occasion?

A jack-o'-lantern is among the must haves in any Halloween haunt and why?
The carved pumpkin, lit inside by a candle, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols in America, and is commonly known as jack-o'-lantern.
Turns out this crazy pumpkin head has its origins in an old Irish legend. The legend of "Stingy Jack" tells of a greedy, gambling drunk farmer who tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the tree trunk. So the devil placed a curse on Jack by condemning him to forever at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of a hollowed turnip.

The carving of pumpkins in North America became associated with Halloween because pumpkins were more common and much larger, as well as easier to carve than turnips. Now the art of carving pumpkins is a common activity this time of year, with a broad assortment of either faces or scenery's. Painting the pumpkins in black has also been a new version of the jack-o-lantern. http://www.marthastewart.com/ has great original ideas for the advanced pumpkin carver.
Many families place several frightening or comical faced jack-o-lanterns on their home's doorstep after dark.
In America the carved pumpkin was originally associated with harvest time and did not become associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.

The many other symbols associated with Halloween have to do with the imagery of Halloween movies and the commercialization of the holiday. Images like witches, vampires, bats, ghosts, ghouls, crows, vultures, black cats, spider and spiderwebs, as well as skeletons, zombies, mummies, rats, and other creepy critters.

Inspiring Classic Movies and TV shows have played a part in incorporating fictional characters into Halloween haunts like Frankenstein, Count Dracula, Elvira, The monsters, The Grinch, Harry Potter, as well as the many witches in various films.

Well, I still don't get the "trick or treat" part. There is so much that still remains a mystery to me concerning Halloween. But I still find it a fascinating time of year with unlimited imagination and creativity for all of us to enjoy.

But I did find this video from National Geographic that pretty much answered my questions.

Hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween this year. Enjoy!

One of my first Halloweens with my kids.

This is one of the first years I truly started to enjoy Halloween. My kids were getting older and started to realize the humor in this holiday.


This year was also a year that the stores had so many fun products to decorate with. I remember in my days we would just use black garbage bags like I used in the rear of this picture to create a dark scary environment.

Now we have realistic human size Disneyland ride type of characters that move their heads, eyes and talk that can scare just about anyone.












Halloween can also be so romantic if you dress the part with your couple. He can be the monster and you can dress up as the poor Innocent little victim.

Kids have so much fun dressing up and using their imaginations and playing pretend.








This karaoke pirate was a blast. I bought it at Walmart for pennies on the dollar. We love the fact that the eyes and mouth move to the sound of your voice. It also sings and dances. It is the best Halloween buy I have ever made.








My little witch and skeleton.













A fog machine is a must to create a spooky graveyard.











We made our tombstones ourselves. And personalizing the messages was a lot of fun.



You can never have too many tombstones in your graveyard!