Halloween Die-ary: September 7, 2018


Let me set the scene. The evening was cool and all our windows were thrown open to it. Strains of Dead Man’s Party vibrated our ear drums. Warm velvet pumpkin scented the air. A small witch in black and an even smaller werewolf in a gray dress cavorted around heaps of orange spheres and piles of white bones.

This was our Friday night.

The wind was definitely in the east today, so we did it. We finally did it. Well, we started it anyway. Decorated the inside of our house. After work, I lugged up all the orange bins from the basement, pulled down all the black bags from the attic, and threw the contents of both around the living room.

We probably got about 40% done.


This is our second Halloween Season in this house, so we still don’t really know where all of our decorations should go. Our plan is to figure out the rest tomorrow, and then at some point go to the store and pick up some of the basics to tie it all together. You know, spider webs, cheesecloth, whatever Martha Stewart is pushing at us this year.

While we hung and plugged and set and arranged, I had a YouTube Halloween playlist blaring on the TV. Which is a great way to do a playlist because, since it’s YouTube and since Halloween music is often from a movie, you get to see snatches of video along with it. So we don’t just hear I Put a Spell on You, we see the Sanders Sisters waving their arms to it. We don’t just hear Sweet Transvestite, we see Tim Curry achieving deity status with it.

Severed hands down, the best part of the night is that we found a couple of our kids’ old costumes…which they immediately put on. That meant that while Bobby Pickett was mugging his way through The Monster Mash on the TV and while we were trying to set the rat skeletons just so-so on the mantel, a witch and a werewolf were running around us cackling and howling, respectively.


The only thing that stopped those two in their monster tracks was when Thriller came on the TV. They’re obsessed with Thriller. Want to watch it year round. And they watch it like they’re mesmerized. Perfectly still, eyeballs drying in their sockets. I don’t know if they’re silently memorizing every single rigor mortis twitch of MJ's dance moves or just completely living in that world that John Landis made, but I love it.

I won’t feel completely at ease until every ceramic jack-o and paper bat is in its place. Once it is, though, I can’t wait until we’re settled into the depths of our couch surrounded by it all, a horror show glowing on the screen and a glass of something with clove and bourbon in my hand.

That’s the night I’m looking forward to the most right now.