All Hallows Eve

We are ready for Halloween around here. 

I have had a fun time decorating our house.

First we have hung some gourds from the porch lantern and then we added a metal bucket filled with hay, pumpkins and some black and orange silhouettes I found at Hobby Lobby.

Next, Will planted these marigolds in the planters. I added some candles & picked up some pumpkins. So here is how it looks tonight:

Tomorrow we’ll carve the pumpkins, I can’t wait to see what the kid’s decide to do.  We were lucky to get invited to a Fall event by our homebuilder where we got these pumpkins for free! Woo hoo, I love free.

I have a new buffet, it belonged to Will’s grandmother Mimi in the 50’s and has been all the way to Venezuela and back.  Will’s Mom updated it by painting it black.  It came to my house just in time to get all decorated for Halloween.  I’m not sure yet how I will have it decorated for every day but for right now it looks like this:

On the left is a dollar store skull floating in a vase. At night I light it up with glow sticks. The “Boo” sign is just printed out on regular paper and stuck into a black frame I have.

I took black and white line drawings  (owls, bats, skull etc.) from a free clip art web site and mounted them onto the top row of plates. A tiny plastic skull went into an upside down glass.

On the middle row I used some glass science lab beakers and added corn syrup and food coloring.  Jacob helped with this part and we came up with psuedo-scary names for the potions inside – Worm Blood, Swamp Juice, Krakken Ink and Bat Boogers. We added lizards and a spider and a white stuffed cat – all stuff we had already.  I popped a squishy ball with eyes into the top of the tea pot so it looks like it is peeping out.

I felt like the bottom row “needed something” and I added some tarnished silver platters – they add that perfect bit of spooky sparkle.

I totally love how this little project came out and it only cost me about $3 at the dollar store.  It is the perfect level of spooky/gross/silly fun for kids and yet still has a little bit of a grown up feel (it is my formal dining room after all!)

Some people think that it is un-Christian to celebrate Halloween – I disagree with this. In Christ we have no fear of death.  We have no fear.  Death is natural, it is a part of our lives – everywhere with us, around us, adding urgency and meaning to our time on earth. I stumbled across this quote online recently:

Quote from María Antonieta Sánchez de Escamilla:

Sometimes a child feels squeamish about death

and admits to fearing skulls and skeletons.

"Why are you afraid?", I ask,
"when each of you owns a skull and skeleton.
We all carry death within us."

They feel themselves and they say: "Yes it's true,
we too are made of bones."