Halloween Decoy Decorating Begins

We got the LED C9 light stringers up on the house today because it was in the mid 60s and dry out. We also put up the plastic Frankenstein's Monster decoration we got from Target last year and in the process discovered we had also purchased purple and green LED mini lights from Target last year as well for this year. We had forgotten all about them until we discovered the box of lights in our outdoor lighting supplies tote in the basement this morning. We thought we were going to skip putting up lights and garland around the door this year, so now we have to go out and purchase some appropriate black foliage Halloween vines for around the door to cover up the light wires. That's the problem when you curate Halloween props and decorations years in advance, you forget what you have! Next week we will put out our 8' inflatable Frankenstein's Monster decoration on our front paver terrace. We call these our "decoy decorations" because we only start to set up our Halloween yard haunt just before Halloween. Years ago, we sometimes literally set up the haunt the morning of Halloween. We like the haunt to be a surprise for the trick-or-treaters on Halloween, but we also get some nasty weather during the course of October that would be detrimental to our props with extended exposure to the elements. However, we eventually realized that our haunt set up tradition could have a negative effect in terms of trick-or-treater turnout on Halloween night because we were a house of "Halloween Scrooges", so we started putting up pre-haunt "decoy" decorations along with our house light stringers (which primarily serve as ambient lighting for our haunt) when spooky season decorating begins. This way we're advertising that we're still around and that this is a house to come visit on Halloween. We also are now trying to foreshadow what the current year's haunt theme will be with the decoy decorations we put out. Also the decoy decorations are intended to be "tame" in comparison to what the actual Halloween haunt will look like.

Frankenstein's Monster Greeter Prop Completed

Another 2026 Frankenstein's Bride themed Halloween yard haunt prop is completed. We modded our 2021 throne prop with a foot rest and put Frankie in shackles to pay homage to a scene from the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein movie. This prop will be in our "Greeter" location for our front walkway.

Local Area Haunts 2026 Part 1

Spotted our first yard haunt of the season today and only a few houses down from our own house! A promising start to spooky season already!

2026 Aedicula Headstone Prop Completed

Halloween Candy 2026

After much thought and debate regarding what candy we were going to give out this Halloween, we decided to stick with full sized Kit-Kat bars as the primary treat along with some Haribo gummy candy snack sized bags as bonus treats. We also got a variety bag of fun sized candy for "emergency reserves", just in case we get swamped with trick-or-treaters. While our highest count over the past 16 years in this neighborhood was ~ 142 in 2024, we typically average around 100. And since we can't simply turn off the front porch lights if we run out of candy with our annual Halloween night haunt, better to have too much candy than not enough. 36 count boxes of full sized Kit-Kat bars were on sale recently for $25.98 at BJ's Wholesale Club. Comes out to 72 cents/bar which in this day and age was too good a deal to pass up. Many grocery stores are currently selling a single full sized Kit-Kat bar for $1.99! Plus kids really seam to love getting the full sized Kit-Kat bars.

Home Depot Halloween 2026

2026 Haunt Lighting

Put together this year's haunt light stringers which will go up on the house towards the end of September. Purple, green, and lime facetted LED C9 bulbs will create a nice ambient color palette for the haunt but will also help advertise our haunt from afar on Halloween night since not everyone on our street gets into the spirit of things. We wish our neighborhood was more like the one in Clinton Township, Michigan.