Image of Jack Skellington from layoutsparks.com
Greetings and Happy New Year, witches!
It's that time of year again, my personal favorite--Halloween. Unfortunately, the Haunted Hallway will not be open this year due to redecorating, as we are still in the process of redoing our foyer. It is going slower than usual and is in various stages of disarray. In the past we decked out the front yard, porch, vestibule and entire foyer in wonderful creepiness complete with smoke machines, scary music and sound effects, colored lights, strobe lights, cobwebs--the whole shebang. It was the closest thing to a halloween haunted house in the area we live in, here in a neighborhood that isn't into halloween compared to others. The trick-or-treaters that did come to our house were allowed to come in and walk to the end of the hallway were we had the Magic Candy Cauldron set up at the bottom of the staircase. Last year we decided that those without proper costumes or masks (more often the case than not) would get an extra treat--the "wolfman" would jump out of the foyer closet and scare them silly!
We'll still dress up and pass out candy this year, and then afterward, go over to the huge Halloween block parties in Hyde Park, the president's former Chicago neighborhood. Each year a stretch of 4 streets are closed off, and every mansion on the block is lavishly decorated. One year, an entire facade of one house was a very elaborate pirate ship. One of my favorites of all time was one porch that was set up to look like the interior of an alien spaceship. There was a rubber human mannequin on a steel table, with four life-size and realistic-looking aliens doing very, um, colorful "experiments" on their human subject. I cannot wait to see what they do next!
