I am tired of Halloween already

If you are anything like me, you will be happy when Halloween has come and gone.


Right now, my home is something akin to being the home of The Munsters or the Addams Family. Needless to say, my wife likes to decorate for the holidays – any holiday.

But, Halloween and Christmas have to be without a doubt her favorite two holidays. In fact, I am positive that somewhere within my home there is at least one Christmas decoration still on display from – not last Christmas – Christmas of several years ago. I know I have seen a Nativity scene that Hilda Findlater gave her many years ago sitting around. I think it is somewhere in our living room, but not very observable at this time because of the Halloween decorations.

On the top shelf of our bookcase are five – yes, five – ceramic haunted houses that light up, blink and make noises. There is also a wooden haunted house figure as well. My wife put down a bed of cotton-looking stuff to set them on. It makes them appear to be sitting on clouds to me, but she insists it is fog. There are some leave-less trees between the haunted houses and some creature figures – wolf men, zombies, vampires, mummies, etc.

On the next shelf down, there is a hodge-podge of decorations including another haunted house that you have to put a candle inside, a skull, a ceramic sack that looks like a jack-o-lantern that also needs a candle inside, a candle shaped like a skull, a plush comical ghost with a trick-or-treat bag and most of the greatest monsters of all time as miniature stuffed doll-like thingies – whatever you call them. There is also a small fish tank with a Fighting Beta. It is not a part of the decorations. It is my oldest daughter’s classroom pet that has not been taken back to her class in a couple of weeks.

One shelf down from there, my wife has a pair of small buckets that are painted up for Halloween. They could be used by a small child to go out and collect candy, but they serve as decorations in my home. While Frankenstein and his bride, the Wolf Man, Dracula and the Mummy made it on the second shelf, the third shelf is home to Quasimodo, The Phantom of the Opera and The Swamp Creature.

Dropping down one more level on the bookcase, you will find five ceramic candleholders of different styles that depict a witch and her cauldron, a jar of bat wings, a bottle of ghost goo, a kid dressed as a ghost and a black cat. There is also a ghost candy dish that makes an eerie sound when you reach for the candy.

No, I’m not finished with the bookcase, yet.

On the shelf next to the bottom, which is the one after the one I just described, there is a jack-o-lantern made of papier-mâché, a candy bowl with a Halloween drawing in the bottom, a wrought iron skeleton holding a leash that has the skeleton of a dog on the other end and two wrought iron black cat candle holders.

The bottom shelf has only one decoration, a whicker basket. The basket is painted in traditional Halloween colors and decorated with the popular figures of the holiday.

That, folks, covers just the bookcase in my living room.

If you walk up to our front door, you will be greeted by Michael Meyers or a poster of the main character of the movie Halloween. The eyes on the poster blink red and the theme music from the movie plays. And just inside the front door, you will find a black-wire Halloween tree with orange lights at the end of each branch. I am surprised my wife has not found miniature decorations to go on that tree – at least she has not found any right now. There are other decorations, but I do not have enough space in this newspaper to give you the full detail of my wife’s decorating skills for the upcoming holiday.

Yes, my wife likes to decorate for Halloween. However, it is nothing in comparison to her favorite holiday – Christmas.

Soon I will not have to look at all these decorations. They will all be removed to make room for the Christmas decorations that will join the Nativity scene Mrs. Hilda gave us. Fortunately, there is not enough room in my home for my wife to put out all the Christmas decorations she has collected over the years. She has to make decisions on which will make it out of the box each year.

But you can bet your life, and mine, that she will use up every available space in our home – even the bathroom. I sure hope she doesn’t buy a toilet seat that plays Christmas songs.