The Black House is Now the Black and Orange House

September 28, 2021 — If you’ve followed the OTIS Halloween Season over the years, you know that decorating the house is a precarious point for me. It overwhelms me with how important it is to my personal season. I need an orange glow and the leer of jack-o-lanterns to change the normal act of watching horror movies in my living room into a sacrament. I need that feeling of coming home after a long day at work to the welcoming arms of witches and skeletons, ghosts and scarecrows. I need to transform even the act of taking the trash to the curb into an exercise of eerie joy as I look back at the giant ghoul towering over the house.

Of course, getting it to that point is daunting.

But this year was the easiest it’s ever been. All because of Lindsey.

 

She had a vision for it this year, planned it all, got what we needed, put it where it needed to go. All I did was go up and down the ladder a million times for her and solve the Case of the Toppling Tombstones. Oh, and cart Big Face out of the basement where he’s been living with me in my study in the off season.

We even decorated the exterior a full two weeks before we usually do it, meaning we subjected the entire neighborhood to Halloween long before they were at all ready for it.

I love the Black House this time of year. All that’s left is for the trees behind it to do their decorating. Then this place will be perfect.