Halloween Town 2005

Halloween 2005

When you have kids Halloween isn’t really one day but a number of days. School always has an event, the local park will have something and of course there is the day itself.

But first about me!

As a lot of you know, Halloween is probably my most favorite holiday. A day doesn’t go by with out “Nightmare Before Christmas” playing somewhere in the house. When I lived down the street I was so out of the way that the road in front of my house was the road less traveled. Very few people came no matter what I did short of human sacrifice (though there were times…) – this would depress me and it got to a point that all I did was put a bowl of candy out and haunt my neighborhood for cool houses. The new house is much different. Not only is it on a corner but across the street, on the Loma Vista side, everyone gets into the holiday spirit in some way; whether its lights or spider webs in the bushes, or spooky ghosties, its really cool. I went for the lights! Along with my 10 foot inflatable Jack Skellington, I decided to add a little illumination to the situation. I have orange and purple icicles hanging from the front gable, the tree in front has orange lights up the trunk and branches and skeleton heads and pumpkin lights in the branches – a real Halloween tree.


Jack Skellington and the Halloween Tree!

The main focus, of course is Jack, lit by a strobe light.


Halloween House

At the front door I have an orange spider web, purple lights on the trunk of this tree and a strobe hitting the front door.


What the neighbors see!


What we see – from the house.

At first I just started small but then added more lights to fill in the empty spaces. As I did this I noticed that my neighbor directly across the street would add another string of lights as I added some more. This went on for the two weeks I had the lights up, I wasn’t really competing with him but he even added a string of green lights on Halloween Day.


The Neighbor’s House…

Now for the kids:

The first Halloween event was at Devin’s preschool on Friday night. Devin belongs to the greatest preschool called ‘The Cottage Co-op.” You have never met a better bunch of parents and kids – it seems like they are all kindred spirits. A bunch of the parents even put together a kid friendly band, complete with an accordion. Just hearing that thing made me want to go home and listen to Oingo Boingo (which I did afterwards.) It was a cool parents with plenty of food and kids being kids.

Saturday was the next event at the “KidsSpace Museum” pumpkin festival. This was held in the park near the Rose Bowl, the “KidsSpace Museum” is housed in the old horticultural building next to the Pavilions where the decorate the Tournament of Roses Parade floats for New Years Day. We didn’t want to mess up this year’s costume so Devin wore his costume from last year – Woody from ‘Toy Story’. We dressed Brianna in an outfit I picked up at Target and mouse ears and tail from the 99 cents store.


Woody and the mouse.


It’s my mouse ears and I’ll cry if I want to.

There were Game Booths, Bounce Houses, and food from Wolfgang Puck. Of course the best thing about these things is the pictures that are taken!


Where’s my cheese?!


Howdy, Pardner!


Squeeky and Tatik.


The Spider and the mouse.

Okay, let’s get the two of you together for a picture:




Okay, that’s it then.

There Devin hooked up with two friends from school, Tor and Trevor. The band that played the kid’s party at Cottage the night before (Trevor’s dad on keyboards) went electric and played a very tight set at the festival. After the concert, Devin, Tor and Trevor headed to the Bounce Houses. I gave Devin his two tickets to go on one of the bounce houses and right away he gave one to Tor – of course we had to take it back because he needed two to get in but it’s very heartening to know that he would share.


Sliding from the bounce house.

Monday came around and we got ready for Halloween – It was ‘Crazy Hair’ day at The Cottage and we sprayed Devin’s hair green.


The boy with the Green Hair.

I threw up a few more lights on the house to accent the Halloween Tree in the front and we were ready (I swear I’m not competing with the guy across the street – I got these lights on sale – how could I pass up a sale!)

Devin wanted to be a Blue Power Ranger and, waiting until two weeks until Halloween, I went to the Disney Store and got a cool Blue Ranger costume for half price. Three days before Halloween, Liana sent me and Brianna to Target to get an costume – although the selection was pretty slim there were enough cool ones, I showed Brianna a furry Lady Bug costume, she shook her little head “No.” I showed her a puppy, “No.” A princess, “No.” A lion, a cowgirl, “No.” “No.” It was about this time that I was thinking if this one and a half year old knew what I was asking from her. Then I showed her a mermaid costume, she grabbed it. It had no price tag on it so when I went to pay for it, the cashier said “How about five dollars?” I protested a little saying it may be more – but she said “Five dollars.” SCORE. I love Target.

I carved the last couple of pumpkins (already did a Jack Skelligton Pumpkin) and Liana said she wanted to do one, I said, “Sure.” Gave her the knife and went to do other stuff – after a few minutes Liana came to me all sad like, “I tink I need your help.” I went to see her pumpkin and asked her what is it? “A bat.” Well actually it was more like a circle connected to another smaller circle, maybe a bat if Picasso did – blind. She asked me to do something, so I added a little shape to the wins and head – and – we still didn’t have a bat, but put it out on display anyway.

As dusk approached the kids got dressed and I put the final touches on my display. One of our neighbors, a 10 year old girl, came over to admire the inflatable Jack, she was dressed as Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers. Devin came up to her, put his arm around her back and said, “Would like to see our pumpkins?” and guided her to the carved pumpkins. The Armenian side strikes again.


Ghosts in the yard!


What’s that?


What’s that?


Devin – and the guys!


Mermaid walking here!!

Liana and her mother took Devin and Brianna trick or treating while I stayed home and gave out the candy; I dressed in all black and sat in the dark playing the piano – ala Phantom of the Opera – badly and scaring kids. I was a little disappointed in the turn out from 5:30 and 6:30. About twenty kids came up – after 6:30 more and more came up. That was about when Liana and the kids came back. Liana was exhausted – I told her to hit about a dozen houses but she stayed out for almost two hours. The kids on the other hand were fine - like Energizer Bunnies.

This is Devin’s third trick or treat – even last year he was just getting the concept but it was a little foreign to him – he thought the candy was ‘trick or treat’ and contemplated a Twix bar like it was the Dead Sea Scrolls. This year he was more aware and very politely went to each door and proceeded, if the option was given to him, to take as many pieces of candy as possible. Brianna on the other hand took to ‘TandTing” like a – ah, mermaid to water. She would go up to the door and knock – when it opened she would point her little wand and make a noise that sounded like “Trick or Treat’ but was really ‘eek e eet’. When she got the candy she would say “ enk ‘ooo,” her rendition of “Thank You.” At one house – no one answered – she stood there. Then she pounded on the door and got louder, “EEK E EET.” Nothing. Liana tried to take her away and she protested and stamped her feet, ah, fins. Halfway down the sidewalk, she escaped from Liana and went back to the door, pounding and kicking, “EEK E EEEEEEEET!” Ah, the Armenian side strikes yet again. When Liana finally got back to our side of the neighborhood she visited our light completion across the street. “I see you got new lights today.” Liana told the woman who answered the door, her husband, in the background smiled. She looked at Liana steely eyed – I could almost imagine two hens squared off in the barnyard ready to send the feathers flying. “I see you’re getting ready for Christmas.” She shot back. Now I really don’t know what that means, but I take it as a challenge. Game on!

When they got back to our house – the kids both shifted gears and became the perfect little hosts and literally threw the candy at the now hordes that were walking up our steps.


Now to EAT the Candy!

All through the night I would get compliments about my house and pumpkins and over hear people as they walked away and said my house was the best (to be fair it wasn’t the best – nearly every house on Loma Vista across the street had cool decorations up – one guy did a whole scene from “Pirates of the Caribbean” as well as spooky graveyards. On Mountain Street (one street up and two blocks over) this one house was overrun with spiders and spooky lights. Mountain Street got a lot of kids that I think were bussed in.

Even though Devin and Brianna were reeling from sugar highs – we didn’t have a lot of problem putting them to bed. If a stray trick or treater came by late – Devin would jump out of bed and come running at the sound of the door bell. One time he came in the living room and saw me with the candy bowl nibbling on one piece of candy, “You can’t eat that candy,” he scolded me. “That’s for the peoples!” Grrrrr – caught red handed. Next time I’ll just eat HIS candy.

Brian on 11.05.05 @ 06:05 PM CST [Read Comments] [No Comments]