‘Tis the Season…

…for spooky decorations! I used to love decorating for the holidays when I was a kid. Growing up, we had some plastic thingies that we hung in the windows, themed for each holiday, and it was always a great exciting thing to pull them out of the storage cubby in the hallway across from Dennis’ room (back when the house was one story!) and hang them on out windows. It wasn’t quite as in-vogue to do elaborate decorations for Halloween back then, but even so, we went all out once in a while. One year, Dad brought home from work X-Rays of an entire human body and rigged up a backlit display that was really, really cool. And, of course, my Mom always went all out to ensure that our homemade costumes were perfect (I doubt she ever slept on October 30th for many, many years, finalizing those costumes!). My memories are quite strong and wonderful.

I have not decorated for holidays of any sort in about ten years. Well, maybe a tad, but nothing to write home about. No Christmas trees — what’s the point, when we are going out of town to visit others for Christmas? — no lights, nothing. Last year, with Alex in the picture, I swore I would. But we spent Halloween last year packing half our house into storage so that we could put it up on the market, and I was lucky I got his costume sewn. And Thanksgiving was basically spent on the road to our new home in Florida, which we moved into the weekend after Thanksgiving. And Christmas — well, I got up our advent calendar, late, and that was about it, but we were headed to New York anyway, so what was the point?

This year, though, we are in full decor mode. We came home a couple of nights ago and our next door neighbors’ yard was transformed with ghosts, bats, orange twinkle lights in the tree, and much, much more. And Alex ooohed and aaahed. And I swore that he would feel the same way about his own yard, darn it.

So yesterday, after preliminary trips to Wal Mart and Target and mid-course correction trips to Michael’s and Home Depot, Alex and I decorated. We put pumpkin clings on the windows facing the street. We strung a yellow rope light that we already had along the bannister of our front porch. We put a three piece “trick or treat” sign in the flower bed. We put a lit up Jack O’Lantern parade along our front walk. We put a wreath on the door, and a foam Jack on the porch, and a scarecrow in front of the porch column, and a ghost hanging from the light on the far side of the garage, and two cute flag banners on the front window. I even got some seasonal gourds at the supermarket for our kitchen counter, got some Halloween hand towels to hang off the stove, and threw some fall leaf garland up on one of our kitchen display ledges. Then I got really organized and made a reference list of what decorations go where and what I would like to keep an eye out for at the post-holiday sales for next year (and started similar lists for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day, etc.).

And Alex loves it. After dinner we went outside to look at our handiwork and my pumpkin-clad little man oohed and aahed. So did some neighbors walking by.

I hope I am giving him the kinds of memories I have of my childhood.

Next stop — baking cookies, finding a pumpkin patch, and carving pumpkins!