If you recognized the title, you are probably familiar with one of my top 10 movies of all time, The Nightmare Before Christmas. It is an animated masterpiece featuring music by Danny Elfman, formerly of Oingo Boingo, and can be watched at Halloween or Christmas though the director, Tim Burton, finally set the record straight that it is a Christmas movie. Whatever.
Halloween is my favorite holiday to decorate for. There are so many different approaches and I love that it does not require gift or card buying; all you need is a bag or two of candy and some fun things to scatter around the house. My Halloween decorating has evolved as the kids have grown from:
- Cute, kid-friendly décor
- Creepy including chainsaw music and zombies
- Minimal Halloween with some things that can stay out through Thanksgiving
cute halloween
The cute kid-friendly décor is great for little kids and there are great options that you can pick up at Target or even your local grocery store. Below are some ideas and I highly recommend that you get the easy pattern book because while the more complex designs are so tempting, you should know that you will be finishing everyone’s pumpkin including your spouses.
creepy halloween
Creepy Halloween décor is the most fun! A giant spider web is a very cost-effective and impactful choice. You will need at least 3 bags of spider web, a couple of bags of spider rings and if you really want to up your game, buy a few additional larger spiders as well. My Redmond house had the perfect staircase for this and each year the kids had fun helping me stretch the web and throw the spider 
rings onto it. It takes under an hour to create, covers a large space and you have very little to store until the next year.
Other great items include skeletons, zombies, strobe lights, dismembered body parts, graveyard headstones, and a CD of scary Halloween music to play for trick or treaters. My kids loved to visit the Halloween store and were very helpful in picking out the creepiest items within their budget. One year, after a multi-year campaign by Gavin, we splurged on a life-size reaper with motion-activated sound for ~$150. We recently replaced him with motion-activated movement and sound and the reaction from trick or treaters has been worth every penny. Your best source for creepy décor is a Halloween store such as The Party Store or Halloween specific store as well as Marshall’s, Homegoods, and Grandinroad.
mODERN HALLOWEEN
Modern Halloween is something that I am exploring this year since the kids are not as involved and we moved to a more contemporary house. I am reusing many of the creepy items but also upscaling a bit with pumpkins in more modern colors and integrating pieces into the existing décor rather than overtaking the house. Some great sources here include Amazon (where I got the pumpkins), Pottery Barn, and West Elm which is more splurgy (is that a word?) but here the theme is less is more.
Although this year may involve trick or treating different rooms of your house (stupid COVID but more reason to decorate), I hope that it does not stop the kids from dressing up and at least running up and down the street – I will have a self-service bucket placed at a 6-foot distance. Silly Odin dragon dog picture tossed in at the end for fun – this year he is going to be a lion.
Hope you have a fantastic Halloween and have the chance to add some of these ideas into your decor.
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