Halloween Decorations that Don’t Die: from Skeletons to Witches

by Robin Fiedler

Make your own house haunted! The cheapest, the scariest, and the most fun on Halloween trick-or-treat night is to make a house look haunted. You need spider webs on your windows, haunted-house music, and a ghoulish get-up. Turn the lights out, except for maybe a candle or two, and wait for the kiddies. No other decorations, maybe just a jack-o-lantern or shrunken head.

The doorbell rings. You open the door, slowly, hopeful that it squeaks. Stand back from the door so trick-or-treaters can barely see you but hear the music and see the eerie lighting. By now they’re afraid to say “trick-or-treat.” Use your ghoulish voice: “Dooooo youuuu vant some treeeeats, little ones? Heeee, heeee, heeee.” They will, of course, hesitate and step back, unsure if they have come upon the ‘real’ thing.

My point is that it doesn’t take much to decorate on Halloween and still celebrate the spirit of the holiday. With hard economic times, The National Retail Federation reports that fewer consumers intend to decorate in 2009 than 2008. Kathy Grannis states, “Even with the advent of life-sized yard decorations, which have become immensely popular in recent years, fewer people plan to decorate their home or yard (47.3% vs. 50.3%).”

The NRF’s consumer intention survey found that consumers plan to spend “$14.54 on decorations” for Halloween in 2009. With so little to spend, the best Halloween decorations are an investment that last year after year, such as a skeleton or just a skull, jack-o-lantern, light silky or gauzy fabrics (white, black and grey), broom, a witch hat, black cauldron, a black cat (real or fake), cotton or fake webbing, and haunting music.

Skeleton – the skeleton represents the departed, as a memory in honor of those who have passed not to scare the living. A quality life-size skeleton can run an average of $150, but if you are a diehard Halloween fan, it will last and last and last. Twenty years of use comes to only $7.50 a year. A quality skull can cost up to $30. Either one can function year-round as an educational tool for anatomy. There’s even websites with how to build your own “corpse” manuals--yes, corpse.

Jack-o-Lantern – The Celts carved a turnip or rutabaga into a face, to mimic a skull or head, and placed it in the window. When Halloween came to America, we used the bigger, more plentiful pumpkin. Besides the annual carving of the real pumpkin, you can purchase a rubber or ceramic jack-o-lantern that stays fresh for years. Depending on quality, prices can range from $10 to $60, so long after the real pumpkin has served its purpose, the other one lives on.

Fabrics – White/grey/black gauzy material can be used to create ghosts, curtains flapping on porches, through open windows or doors, used to make a witch’s flowing skirt over a broom, wrap a dummy to make a mummy, hung from tree branches, and so many other creative endeavors. Besides old sheets and clothes, fabrics can be bought year round. Keep your Halloween eyes open.

Witches – broom, cauldron, and witch hat, so that either you be the witch or create a dummy witch. Lesley Bannatyne, Professor at Harvard, explains, “Over the roughly 300 years of the witch craze in Europe, people came to fear witches. They were wary of witch's pets (cats); witch's tools (brooms); and witch's festivals (including the eve of All Hallow's),” thus their necessary representation in Halloween decorations.

In “What's Next: Trends in Halloween" Bannatyne explains, “Halloween has gone from being about death as transformation-moving from the physical world to the spirit world-to transformation as presentation-transforming your house, yard or self for one night and showing it off to the world.” I say, don’t let the world down this Halloween.

Footnotes

Bannatyne, Lesley. “What’s Next in Halloween Trends.” Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University. http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~bannatyn/articles.html#trends

Grannis, Kathy. “As Economy Impacts Halloween, Americans Get Creative.” National Retail Federation. 29 Sept. 2009 http://nrf.org/modules.php?name=News&op=viewlive&sp_id=790