Spooky Season Arrives

Every year, sometime in early January, as I'm packing up all the decorations from the holidays, I comfort myself by remembering that really, at least one quarter of our year is spent with decorations absolutely covering everything in our house. It's true. We pull out the Halloween stuff at the end of September or early October, and from that point on the piano, bookshelves and any other available flat surface is held down by a heap of something festive. So it really won't be that long before I'm getting it all out again.

I'm continuing to evolve my Halloween decorations. It was only 2 years ago that I caught the vision of the Spooky Season vibe I adore. It's still a work in progress, but fills me with joy every October 1st. I did have to chuckle at myself this year when I opened up one of the bins of fall decorations and had to face the sheer number of pumpkins I have collected over the years. Most of them are tiny, or I made them, or I inherited them from my mom. But not all, and there are just SO MANY of them. This year we were lucky enough to have a few real ones from our own garden that we added to the porch. The squirrels didn't start eating them until November, so I count that as a win!

Emma did a lot of the decorating this year. She's developing quite the eye for arranging a spooky set up. My additions to the collection this year were a coyote jaw bone and springbok antelope horn, plus a few more beetles encased in resin. These all came from a little shop called Natur that sells all sorts of things from the natural world. My friend Becca and I went there on a little date. She and I have been scheduling a Christmas Date together for several years now, and have decided that we also need a Halloween Date each year, seeing as how we both gained a love for Halloween the same year. 2020. Seems on brand to me!

We enjoyed our Haunted October a lot - I have been creating playlists on spotify which include very funny old songs from the 20s to the 50s about ghouls and the boogey man and the like. We of course enjoyed an evening of watching Over the Garden Wall, which is really our only favorite Halloween movie. (I successfully avoided Hocus Pocus this year, as well as its sequel. Phew.) 

The holiday season was officially underway, although the heat lasted through half of October. That was ok, as it meant a longer tomato season.