KAREN WIGHT -- No Place Like Home

You don’t have to be the Addams Family to appreciate a good

thrill-a-thon. It’s time to make your home creepy, spooky, mysterious and

kooky for Halloween.

With a few resources and a little imagination, you can have the

eeriest house on the block. Halloween gives us the opportunity to push

the Outer Limits, just a little bit, and indulge in a little bit of

mystery.

The frontyard is like a blank canvas for Halloween decorations. The

bags of white nylon cobwebs are fun for everyone to use as decorations.

Last year I really got carried away and brought out the ladder and

stretched fake cobwebs from tree to tree in the frontyard. This created a

cobweb canopy about 8 feet high. I randomly threw fake spiders on top of

the fake webs, and the mood was set.

Once I started with the webs, I couldn’t stop. The kids and I wrapped

the bushes, around the front door, the windows. I even covered the rose

garden, which was a monster mess -- literally -- to clean up.

Next came the pumpkins. We don’t carve ours until the 30th so we can

avoid the mold and mildew that seems to take over in our warmer weather,

but lining up a few pumpkins by the outdoor bench brings a lot of fall

color all at once. Instant gratification.

On my scouting mission this year, I noticed that Roger’s Gardens has

ghoulish gray pumpkins, or maybe they were another type of giant gourds.

They were very weird, a Halloween plus. Gourds have some other things

going for them besides being bumpy and rather ugly -- you can save them

as Thanksgiving decorations.

Halloween calls for a little bit of the macabre, so we hang a skeleton

on the front door that laughs menacingly. I think I have scared a few

little kids on the street, which was not the intention, but the skeleton

remains, no bones about it.

The hot item in our house this year is the fake crows I bought at

Michael’s craft store. These replicas are pretty good, and they fooled my

kids for a moment when they came home and found some of the unwelcome

visitors guarding the door. The crows may be politically incorrect around

town, but they have their place as ominous door-greeters. Halloween is

definitely their holiday.

We have a string of flashing green skeletons that go along with the

front door theme. I bought mine years ago from who knows where, but I did

notice that Light Bulbs Etc. in Costa Mesa has a good selection of all

kinds of novelty lights, including skeletons, pumpkins, mummies and

glowing spider webs.

The front fountain that never got filled with water is the perfect

place for some miniature pumpkins (Trader Joe’s sells a bag of four for

$1.99). That was Karen’s Best Buy for Halloween.

We have a lot of saved kids’ artwork over the years that get special

placement. A few ghosts come out of the closet to haunt our house once a

year. And of course, it wouldn’t be Halloween if I didn’t buy the candy

early, the kids didn’t find it and eat it, and I didn’t have to go back

to the store at the last minute to buy more. Argh.

If you’re feeling daring, move the madness inside. Cover your living

room furniture with some old white sheets, tilt the pictures on the walls

and spread some fake cobwebs from corner to corner. Cobwebs also make a

great statement on your chandeliers, mantles and houseplants.

Halloween and Thanksgiving are an opportunity to have great flowers in

the house. All shades of oranges, bronzes, yellows and purples are a

beautiful combination. Pussy willows look great in fall arrangements. The

traditional varieties have grayish catkins that are visually interesting.

If you can find the pussy willow hybrid called melanostachys, get a

bunch for the perfect Halloween arrangement. The stems are greenish brown

and the catkins (the fuzzy part) are black with red anthers. A little

unearthly, but that’s the essence of the holiday.

So, skip dusting the living room this month, get a few fake webs to

add to the real ones in the corners and have some frightful fun.

KAREN WIGHT is a Newport Beach resident. Her column runs Saturdays.

PO Photo Caption:

Though crows may be politically incorrect around town, the fake

versions make great Halloween decorations.