Wow…2020, what a year, what a nasty mess!
Suffice it to say, coronavirus dominated the proceedings to such a large extent, it would almost be ridiculous *not* to comment on it here…but, long and short, and without taking it too lightly, COVID19 certainly threw us all for a loop, didn’t it?
…and as for the political climate? Don’t go there.
From a personal standpoint, we decided early on that, even if all our other favorite Halloween related activities went south this season – and, for purely practical reasons, they did – we would instead go all out and do a Grand Display for all to enjoy….
Our personal lives – not to mention place of residence – remained constant – remember last year how we were planning to move and all that, and I made several grand gestures about our imminent departure, thanking our apartment complex for all they had done for us, blah blah blah, etc.…?
Funny how life works sometimes….as the pandemic began to dominate nearly everything, there were several shifts in management at our complex…all to our favor, incidentally…
A prior property manager – who happened to be a good friend of ours, btw - took the reigns once more, and, as she gave us her blessing to go hog wild as we pleased, we signed on the dotted line yet again, and, as long as she is here, and the terms remain good, so shall we…
On a side note, we almost transferred back to our original apartment which we resided in from 2005 -2017 - and always preferred, incidentally...that unit has a terrific view - but, our chance at it came just as the virus began to spread, and, preferring to err on the side of caution, we stayed put.
With all that in mind, we decided upon an Addams Family theme – our original prop was actually *two* parts, it would have completely covered our patio, obliterating anything else we would have put up there!
We just used the upper half, and, as you can see, the results were Just Fine....we may use the bottom section in a future display, who knows? It has potential, but we shall see.
My wife Lisa designed the "Cousin It" statue – very cleverly, too, may I add – cost less than $10 altogether – and we paid a neighbor with a plastic printer to create our "Thing" prop...he’s resting on Gomez’s shoulder…
Many people have hinted over the last few years that we should do Gomez and Morticia as Halloween costumes, but that never really tickled out fancy...but, as a patio theme? I'd say we were long overdue.
What really gave the display a nice punch was resurrecting our Haunted Scarecrow animatronics prop, and the purchase of that huge werewolf from Home Depot – I actually believe we got the last one - really sent this year's theme right over the top....
Incidentally, if you ever decide to use these kind of props, be aware those motion detectors are REALLY SENSITIVE - the wind blows and they activate. Gets a bit old after a certain point.
Funny story about the werewolf, btw - we purchased him in early September and built him up a couple weeks before Labor Day - that’s when we traditionally set out our patio display, the cemetery goes up at the end of the month – but we left him sitting in the living room for a bit, and, when maintenance or visitors came by, they got the shock of their lives – we left him plugged in, you see, and remember what I said about those motion detectors.....?
The maintenance man nearly had a heart attack…he actually called the office, screaming “WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE!?!?!?”
We love our work.
2020 also marked the Fiftieth (50) Anniversary of one of my all time favorite monster movie shows, Chicago’s WGN-TV 9’s Creature Features – this was the first monster movie program I ever watched as a kid from about 1973 to roughly 1975, and I caught ALL the biggies here – Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, even the original Godzilla and Gamera films…ahhh, the memories…
I put a subtle little tribute in the graveyard….right next to our Great Pumpkin scene, which is probably a permanent fixture now, considering how beloved the program is as well...
Incidentally, BOO!!!! HISSS!!! on Apple TV snatching the rights to all the Peanuts specials! 50 plus years on network television, and now you want people to pay for them? Greed knows no bounds.
Anyway ....as we reside
in
The end result probably ranks as my all time favorite graveyard scenario that we’ve done to date….very colorful, very well spaced, and plenty for the eye to see....and our fog machine STILL WORKS!!!!!!
Putting out the cemetery this year took a lot out of my wife and I – we both have very physically demanding jobs - and set off a series of discussions on both practicality and change on our display…
We’ve been doing a full cemetery for a long time now, and, side from a few odds and end, they’ve been fairly similar to this point….so, with that in mind, and wanting to spread our creative wings a bit next season, quite a few stones are going to be eliminated and we’ll be introducing new characters and set pieces in the midst of it all.
We’ll still have a cemetery, no question, but the quantity of stones will be cut probably by 30-50% - depending on what we do – and the smaller stones by the dragon will be replaced by newer props.
We’ve wanted to stretch our creative muscles and alter our display for a few years now – we’ve been very happy to do the graveyard all this time, but we can always make it more eye popping with new elements, and quite frankly, we’ve been building less and less over the last few years, and we want some new challenges.
What the next year brings in regards to both the coronavirus and the political scene remains to be see, but as for us?
Here's hoping for a better year with far more treats and far fewer tricks...until next time friends, be safe, be well, and have a most haunting season, indeed....
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We did get around a bit with our adopted daughter Hunter, and visited all kinds of cool home haunts - not to mention our annual jaunts to Foy's in Fairborn - kudos to these folks, some were truly fantastic!
Ah, yes....Halloween Night - what gorgeous weather we had, with an amazing full moon to boot!
Despite all that happened this year, you just can't kill Trick or Treat it seems....extra caution was taken, but, overall, no one was being foolish, and everyone we met had a wonderful evening...hopefully, next year will return us to some semblance of normalcy....time will tell...
We created a last-minute Jack-O-Lantern tweak to our display, we think it added a nice bit on character IMHO, buy, hey...
All in all, a very sweet conclusion to the season in an extremely difficulty year for all...here's to better days by the Grace of God...
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