Post Halloween wrap up
by Chris on Nov.02, 2009, under Main Page
In the immortal words of Charlie Brown: “Well Linus, another Halloween has come and gone.”
In many ways I feel like this was one of our best years, even though we did suffer several malfunctions and breakdowns in the first couple hours of the evening. (These really ticked me off, as I tested the crap out of everything this year to ensure that this wouldn’t happen.)
Mike and I dressed up in our usual garb and tried to blend in amongst the reapers in the front yard to scare the kiddies. Karl wasn’t able to come this year because he was on a hunting trip, unfortunately. And Mike actually carried most of the weight for the first couple hours as there kept being little mishaps I had to tend to and fix. He stayed until probably eight O’clock, but then Mairi decided she had had enough of this whole loud, spooky Halloween business, thank you very much, and it was time to go home. I clearly need to have a talk with that kid and get her head in the game. No niece of mine is going to be anti-Halloween!
Shannon and Justin and Elisha all helped as well, leading groups of kids through the tunnel and back to the candy, often having to convince them that nothing was going to eat them along the way. As always, a good number of the kids – even some from the neighborhood who have come down every day to help me put the display together – simply refused to go back, so we had a bowl of treats up front for them. We’d always try to convince them to go back first, but if they refused or lost their nerve before the end, they still got their candy.
We tried to keep a running tally of how many trick-or-treaters we had this year using hand held counters. Shannon was primarily in charge of that effort and her officially tally was 231 – that was only counting kids, no parents, and only on their first time through. I’m not sure if that is our biggest year or not since we’ve never actually counted before, but we did hand out more candy that in recent years.
There was at least 10-15 people milling around the front of the house at all times, and occasionally more, asking questions, taking pictures, and just generally watching the goings on.
It was an odd year in that things started early, even before dark, but until about 7:30 or 8:00 it was all little, little kids, in that 3-4 year range. Surprisingly most of them were okay with the whole spooky yard and tunnel thing, and we naturally tried to tone down the scary surprises for the little ones, although there were a couple of communication mishaps and a few little ones wound up crying. I felt bad when that happened, but we tried to make up for it with extra candy.
Channel 6 news did a couple of drive-by’s but in the end said they couldn’t raise their antenna so they didn’t stay. Apparently several people had called them and sent them pictures, but in the end we were news-less this year.
We didn’t get many pictures during the actual event, but mom did shoot some video using Kyle’s camera that he very graciously loaned us for the evening. The pictures that we did get, along with all the rest of the Halloween we took while we were setting up as well as the detailed Jack O’ Lantern pics are already up on friends.thinktankgallery.com and I will be adding the video as soon as I can.
Despite these few mishaps, everything looked great. Mike dressed up in his usual garb and helped me scare the little kiddies for the first couple of hours or so, but then his own little kiddie decided that all this Halloween business was scary and loud and just generally total crap and had to go home. I clearly need to have a talk with that kid and set her head straight.
The resurrected fog machines worked perfectly, although I think I may need to buy additional dry ice for next year: we ran out around 8:30 or so. Still, the night was still enough that most of the fog hung around in the air, even when it was wasn’t cold and hanging in the grass, filling the whole yard and surrounding the whole house in fog. It was pretty awesome, especially in the tunnel. I put a strobe light in there this year, and with the fog in the tunnel it was pretty effective I thought.
November 2nd, 2009 on 12:08 pm
What a great job you have done. Not just here, with the photos but the work you did in the yard, creating this eery graveyard for the enjoyment of all who pass by, is fabulous. Great job. And thanks to all who helped, To name a few, Mike for being a grim reaper year after year, and tenderly coaxing the little ones in to the yard. His knees are probably sore the next day. Shannon for being a non scary tour leader, and candy hander outer. Justin and Elisha for jumping in and helping. And to all those same folks and Jane for carving the great pumpkins too. To Jim for helping with the crypt keepers jumping abilities. To Mo for helping near every night, for making caramel apples and carving and everything else too! To Kyle for loaning us the Flip. To all and I hope I did not miss anyone, and thanks to our great friends who come and share the night with us. Happy Haunting and now it is onward and upward to next years halloween bash.
November 2nd, 2009 on 2:50 pm
An additional shout out to Chris’ Aunt Becky, who haunts the Halloween stores for fog juice, lights etc for his display. She also carved 4 pumpkins and squealed like a little girl when the crypt keeper startled her, creating a memorable moment for all of us.