Story of a Boy and His Ghoul

Well, it's mid-October which means that Mr. C and I are due for our annual "discussion" (read- argument) about how scary is too scary for our Halloween decorations. It is Mr. C's dream every year to have the scariest house in the neighborhood. And it's my dream every year for our family and friends with small children not to hate us for the emotional trauma their children have to suffer on their path to our front door.
Now my birthday happens to be on Halloween, so you'd think if there was anyone in this household prone to going overboard with Halloween spirit (pardon the pun), it'd be me. But no. The truth is that I've always loved having my birthday on Halloween but I never really got into the dressing up thing until I met Mr. C.
The first year I had met him, he and my stepson 9 were Harry Potter and Professor Snape. He made an excellent Snape. I was very impressed, if not slightly embarrassed that my boyfriend made such a good Snape. I comforted myself by thinking that at least he wasn't Hagrid. The next year he was an alien Santa, the year after that he was Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, and the list goes on. He comes up with some odd things and always at the last minute, but that's part of what I love about him. He has great creativity, but this man I married- this art major from Santa Cruz, CA- is one of those people who sees beauty in things that others would just call bizarre. In other words, he's a weirdo.
For example, one of his most cherished possessions that he kept in the "Halloween Decorations" box was a mannequin baby head. I'm not sure if it was him or my stepson 9 who had the oh-so-tactful idea to spray paint it silver. Then, just to make things as painful as possible for me, they dribbled a little red paint down the side of the skull and stuck the whole thing on a stick.

You read that right.
A baby head.
On a stick.

It took me two years, but Mr. C finally agreed to banish the baby head. It now resides somewhere in his classroom where God only knows what additional horrors his teenage students have bestowed upon it.

So, not unlike many other married couples, we have learned to compromise. We now both contribute equally to our Halloween decor:

Here's a piece that I've contributed:


And here's one that he conjured up:



Again, mine:



And his:



See, marriage is all about compromise. There is, at least, one set of decorations that we both agree on and it's these little tree ghosts that the kids made a couple of years ago. I think they're too cute.


You can't tell in the picture, but 9 and Princess G drew on the most original little faces. There's a cyclops, a girl with 2 little fangs, a pumpkin, a vampire... etc.
Hey, we may be weird, but we do love creativity around here.

You all have a frightfully fun day!