The Decoratoring™, Halloween edition
/Ah, Halloween…
I know what you’re thinking: A charming custom, you and your spouse cheerfully opening the door to find the neighborhood children in their creatively assembled costumes, their adorable cries of “Trick or treat!,” the redistribution of wealth, i.e., candy, etc.
You clearly do not live on my street or in my neighborhood. For some reason, several years ago people started going overboard with their Halloween decorations around here. Parents started bringing their kids to our neighborhood to see all the cool decorations. Lots of parents. Tons of kids.
Four or five years ago we asked the police department to close off our street for safety, and they did. First Baptist Church began hosting their trunk-or-treat thing in their parking lot across the street — even more kids started coming.
The infection spread from our street to the cross streets. More families appeared.
And now, it’s a monster. Thousands of people crowd our neighborhood every year and revel in the spectacle. (We gave out 2,000 pieces of candy last year, one per child, and ran out before the evening was over.) This year a local bank is sponsoring some kind of “candle-lit forest” activity at the children’s museum at the other end of the street. It never ends.
My Lovely First Wife and I had considered skipping town this year, but somehow we didn’t. And so I found myself working on Decoratoring™for tomorrow night. Our neighbors decided last year that we would both do Hogwarts-themed decor, and theirs is pretty amazing. They’ve built most of theirs themselves.
The Weasleys’ car
They invented a chute for candy as a covid precaution; this year it’s a broom.
the winged keys from “sorcerer’s stone”
Our decorations are not quite as amazing.
Yes, we just bought a banner.
The candles are turned on and off with a remote control wand, so that’s cool.
However, I will brag about one creative thing I did. We have this big glittery black owl that we usually hang on the gate, but this year it clearly needed to be delivering a letter.
So I made the letter.
As I was finishing it, I thought how I should have documented the process, because it might be useful to others. Essentially, to improve the accuracy of the Hogwarts crest and the postal stamp, I printed out the original then cut out the pertinent shapes to trace onto the card. Simple yet effective.
And what will my costume be?
