By Jodi

October 13, 2008 11:48 AM | Link to this

nope

By David S

October 13, 2008 11:49 AM | Link to this

What suddenly advanced the calendar on halloween decorating? I know of houses that have had their decorations up for almost 2 weeks now. Heck, even WalMart and Target already have Christmas decorations for sale. What happened to Thanksgiving?

Personally, my decorations are worth too much money to stick our for that long, and most won’t withstand 2” of rain and 30mph winds that we have had lately. Some stuff will go out now, but the bulk of the decorating happens the weekend before halloween.

My wife suspects that the early and increased decorating is a sign that everyone is staying home and “nesting” in preparation for the upcoming economic depression. I suspect that she is partially right.

Personally I like to change things a bit every year. I like to use lights, strobes, fog machines, latex body parts and scary heads as well as a blow up 12foot purple spider. I buy all of my stuff within days of halloween or right after so that I can take advantage of the sales. It allows for more show for less dough. This year I am expanding into my garden area and turing my raised beds into burial plots. By the time I am done, I usually have the most decorated house in the neighborhood. Its a lot of fun to do and my neighbors and their kids certainly seem to enjoy it. The ones that don’t typically decorate don’t seem to appreciate my efforts as much, but that’s ok.

Everything typically comes down halloween night (or at least the expensive stuff does). Unfortunately too many thieves think that the best place to shop for halloween is in their neighbor’s yard.

Remember the words of Stephen King when asked what his inspiration for all his horror stories was “I have the heart of an 8 year old boy….and its sitting in a jar on my desk” Happy Halloween.

By Shelley

October 13, 2008 12:55 PM | Link to this

I decorate and the reason I do it kind of early is it takes a lot of effort. I like to enjoy it for 3 weeks.

By Mike D

October 13, 2008 1:04 PM | Link to this

My neighbor has decorated their house to the max. Unfortunately for them, they are big Obama supporters, so for fun Saturday night, I snuck over a temporarily stole their pumpkin. I took it back later after I had pooped in it. I also painted a N in front of Obama on their yard sign.

I plan on having more fun with their yard.

By cjc

October 13, 2008 1:09 PM | Link to this

Yes, we decorate for Halloween. It’s my husband’s favorite holiday! Most of our neighbors also decorate. The trick-or-treaters really enjoyed our decorations last year. We will hopefully have everything up by next weekend.

By jlb

October 13, 2008 1:26 PM | Link to this

Mike D - Wow! I can’t believe you admitted to being totally immature and mean! Way to show support for your candidate! I bet McCain/Palin would be ashamed of you.

By GACitizen

October 13, 2008 1:30 PM | Link to this

I hope you are joking. Otherwise you should be ashamed. You are not only embarrassing the Republican Party but spoiling Halloween.

By JYA

October 13, 2008 1:45 PM | Link to this

I don’t decorate or participate in trick or treating. I normally take my son to church for our fall festival.

Mike D… you are really sad. It’s people like you who keep racism, hate and foolishness going. If you disagree with someone’s opinion, that is your right. However, you do not have the right to steal and damage someone else’s property. Support your candidate without all of the mean antics. Your actions give the republican party a bad name.

By No_Osama08

October 13, 2008 1:55 PM | Link to this

Of course my family and I decorate. I don’t understand why any family with children would not….that should be grounds for child abuse!

By Phyllis

October 13, 2008 2:01 PM | Link to this

NO. Halloween is a pagan holiday. I only serve one and real God. halloween is serving satan.

By TOM

October 13, 2008 2:04 PM | Link to this

Not anymore….. My wife & I used to really enjoy decorating for Halloween & giving out candy, but the past 3-4 years we have not. we do not have children of our own. I guess we quit participating because of the “children” in our nieghborhood, or other neighborhoods, some would come by car. Most of them do not even dress up, they don’t say trick or treat, they just stand there, open up the plastic grocery bag or pillow case & JUST STAND THERE. They would walk away & not even say thank you or anything. That just spoiled it for us, we try to not even be home on Halloween anymore.

By Texas Pete

October 13, 2008 2:18 PM | Link to this

Mike D that is hilarious. I might use your idea in my neighborhood. I’ve already picked up the idea of mixing condiment packets in my candy from another blogger. I’m going to take it to the next level by poking pin holes in the packets so they ooze all over the kids bags.

By SANDRA MOORE

October 13, 2008 2:19 PM | Link to this

Please do away with Halloween. It needs to be removed from the calendar. It is a dangerous holiday. It is a pagan holiday. It is tacky. Witchcraft! Nothing good about it. Thank You,

By SANDRA MOORE

October 13, 2008 2:19 PM | Link to this

Please do away with Halloween. It needs to be removed from the calendar. It is a dangerous holiday. It is a pagan holiday. It is tacky. Witchcraft! Nothing good about it. Thank You,

By Peadawg

October 13, 2008 2:41 PM | Link to this

JYA, please stop playing the race card…gets old and worn out! Just b/c I decide to vote for McCain, doesn’t make me racist. I’ve always been a Republican.

SANDRA MOORE and Phyllis, take a chill pill. I’m a Christian, but Halloween is a holiday for the kids to have fun and get candy, then send them Grandma & Grandpa’s house for the weekend :)

By Tame

October 13, 2008 2:56 PM | Link to this

I thought this was about decorating for the holiday, NOT politics or racism.

I believe in god. Personally I don’t decorate but I do allow my daughter to trick or treat. It is fun to see the kids dressed up and I actually like the decoration just not that big on Halloween.

By David S

October 13, 2008 3:12 PM | Link to this

Satan, Santa

Swap a few letters and presto.

More likely the god these two really serve is the god of the state.

They certainly don’t believe in freedom of religion.

Halloween for most people is as much about worship of Satan as Easter and Christmas have become about the celebration of Jesus. Its just another Hallmark Holiday that teaches kids that putting on a costume and begging is rewarded. If you aren’t rewarded, then it is ok to play a trick (vandalize) on the person or their property.

Wow, sounds just like the what happened to america with the bailout package. Sounds even more like the perfect description of a democrat or a republican putting a proposal before the american people.

If you aren’t getting any enjoyment out of decorating for halloween then you should stop.

I has become for too many little more than an organized exercise in extortion. Too many parents drive their kids to other neighborhoods to get better or more candy. They don’t even stay home and hand out candy to their own neighborhood kids. We even had one couple walk around with their newborn and beg for candy for her. Maybe Phyllis has a point about the holiday being for Satan. For many it certainly seems to bring out the worst. Just look at the jerk who doesn’t approve of his neighbor’s Obama sign. Newsflash idiot - McCain is just as bad or maybe even worse. The republican party blew its chance to have the greatest candidate who ever ran - Ron Paul. Now the country will have to suffer from either fascism or communism or a socialist blend of both for the next four years. Face it, what you will see on Halloween night is nothing compared with the names that will be appearing on your ballot on Nov. 4. Nothing of man is as scary as that which government can think up.

By ESR

October 13, 2008 3:29 PM | Link to this

Yes, we decorated about a week ago and for us, we went all out. We live in an older nighborhood near the local neighborhood park entrance and the kids have a Halloween parade that goes in front of our house and they get a big kick out of how we decorate. This year we went for ‘dark’, lot’s of skulls, skeletons, graves and ghouls. We knew we did well when a neighbor brought her 4 year old over and halfway up the drive the kid screamed to the high heavens and didn’t want to go closer. That’s what we were going for. BOO!

By scott

October 13, 2008 3:30 PM | Link to this

FYI something cannot be both pagan and satanic, satan is a purely christian boogeyman. pagan means non believer….

By MommaInGwinnett

October 13, 2008 3:34 PM | Link to this

SANDRA and Phyllis: easy there, ladies! Calm down!

I bet you didn’t know that the term Halloween has religious origins:

It’s known as Halloween - as it is the eve of “All Hallows’ Day”,[6] which is now also known as All Saints’ Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions,[3] until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints’ Day from May 13 (which had itself been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) to November 1.

In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints’ Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day. Liturgically, the Church traditionally celebrated that day as the Vigil of All Saints, and, until 1970, a day of fasting as well. Like other vigils, it was celebrated on the previous day if it fell on a Sunday, although secular celebrations of the holiday remained on the 31st. The Vigil was suppressed in 1955, but was later restored in the post-Vatican II calendar.

So let the kids rejoice having a typical commercialized holiday that it has grown into these days. No big deal!

By BOO

October 13, 2008 3:36 PM | Link to this

Ugh, I hate it that you Christians give the rest of us a bad name with all your poo-pooing. Get over yourselves! Kids dressing up and people having fun is NOT pagan- it’s become an American tradition. Sure some people do dumb things that give it a bad name but the last time I checked, those morons exist the other 364 days out of the year too. I would even venture to guess that Halloween is safer than some holidays (like 4th of July and New Years- I don’t see you voting to take those off the calendar).

Someone in our group of friends always hosts an adult costume party so we can have our fun on a non-Halloween night and then we all get together on Halloween to take our kids trick-or-treating. It’s a fun tradition that our kids look forward to every year. We always stop and take pictures of our kids together in the best decorated yards.

Everyone in my family always dresses up and we decorate some. Not extensively because we have lots of birthdays this time of year and are just getting into the holiday season but we do collect a little bit of stuff each year so our decor has grown over the years. I usually line our driveway & sidewalk with luminaries on Halloween and replace the porch lights with black lights and cheap spider web. A couple $3 Halloween CDs provide the background music. I try to buy stuff that will stick around for a while (like yard signs and a Halloween flag) but also try to go more with a fall theme like the hay bales, scarecrows & mums that I can leave out a bit longer than the actual Halloween-themed stuff.

We do carve pumpkins every year too and that has turned into a contest between my son and I to see who can carve the coolest pattern of the year. Our nieghbors have started to expect it and now come by to see what we’ve done this year.

All in all, I love Halloween because it can be done pretty inexpensively and it gives us a chance to catch up with our friends before the Holidays and extended-family committments catch up with us.

By Kat

October 13, 2008 3:36 PM | Link to this

Phyllis and Sandra - Why don’t you visit the Get Schooled blog and then come back and state an opinion that isn’t full of nonsense, short-sightedness, and ignorance? Thanks!

By mayretter local

October 13, 2008 3:42 PM | Link to this

trick or treat, on All Hallow’s Eve.

NATAS NATAS NATAS - i’ll have your children’s stomach and their minds

y’all must not have been to any crazy adult halloween parties - what a blast!

y’all get over it and decorate and have some funn with it!!! we’re having a haunted hayride!!

By Wayne

October 13, 2008 4:25 PM | Link to this

Not even Halloween and the trolls are already out.

By JennyATL

October 13, 2008 4:31 PM | Link to this

I dont do Halloween because unfortunately my Daddy died Halloween night and it changed the way I look at Halloween. It is a sad day for me.

By JYA

October 13, 2008 4:43 PM | Link to this

@Peadawg:

I was speaking to Mike D in regards to his actions. I was not playing the race card nor did I say that everyone voting for McCain is a racist. Since you say you’re a Christian, why are YOU against me speaking out against someone who’s doing wrong? His actions were hateful and plain mean.

Also, just for the record, racism STILL exists.

By Mike D

October 13, 2008 5:27 PM | Link to this

I’m not a racist, I’ve voted Republican for years. If Obama were a Republican, I would vote for him. As to taking a dump in my neighbor’s jack o latern -I’m an @ss and I love being one. Also the NObama thing was just to make hime even more PO’ed.

By Mike D

October 13, 2008 5:48 PM | Link to this

To JLB @ 1:26

McCain may not approve, but I bet Palin would.

Also, If you knew what an @ss clown my neighbor is, you would approve as well.

The only thing that makes me a little sad was I wasn’t close enough to hear him when he went to go light the thing.

By NO way

October 13, 2008 6:14 PM | Link to this

I’m amazed at all of the so-called christians that celebrate this Satanic holiday. Stop rationalizing your souls because “it’s cute for children.” “When you were blind, you have no sin, but when you say you see, your sin remaineth.” Maybe you should familiarize yourself with the origin of man and sin. Did God think it was cute that Eve simply bit the fruit? Did he not say to have NOTHING to do with witchcraft? Do you not know that Satan is real and very deceptive and will appear as an angel of light one day? I wonder if that will be cute for you as well. Jesus said that if it were possible, he will deceive the very elect and yet we play on his turf as if we’re some match for him. It’s bad enough we accept the false teachings of Christmas and Easter, pagan holidays surrounding Jesus, but then we embrace Halloween too, a day that promotes the devil’s agenda! Again, Jesus said it best, “In vain they do worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

By Danny G

October 13, 2008 6:32 PM | Link to this

We decorate every year and I am disgusted with the family’s that claim that they do not celebrated Halloween, nor give out candy, but make sure their kids get the stuff from the rest of us neighbors.

By Mike D

October 13, 2008 6:42 PM | Link to this

These religous nuts that complain about Halloween are the same ones that are scared of Harry Potter. They tend to be from the nuttier side of the Baptist Church.

Hopefully their religion will withstand a few costumes, decorations, and a story about a boy wizard. If not, it wasn’t much of a religion to begin with.

By dede

October 13, 2008 6:43 PM | Link to this

Wasn’t “holloween” also a day of of blessing the harvest??? You know Pagen Worship is all about nature and mother earth. All the kids in my neighborhood are grown up. When they stop dressing up and “trick or treat” in large groups after 9pm, “I am not home.” It’s a shame,cause I remember how much fun it was when I was a kid. Of course my Dad walked with us with his trick or treat shot glass.

By theone

October 13, 2008 7:26 PM | Link to this

Bless all u racist people,there is a special place in hell for yall, may burn for enternity!!!

By I betcha

October 13, 2008 7:31 PM | Link to this

Lyn and Chester Drawers,

Sound like you have missing teeth in the front, live in a single wide and are brothers and sisters —married to each other with a child. I bet I’m right!

By Danny G

October 13, 2008 7:47 PM | Link to this

Lot of ignorance going on. Please take the raciest stuff to your next Klan rally. This is 2008 people.

By Grammaw

October 13, 2008 8:15 PM | Link to this

My 5 y.o. granddaughter will be out trick or treating, and if she comes across any of you sicko’s, you’ll have ONE NASTY GRANNY to deal with!

By Huh

October 13, 2008 8:25 PM | Link to this

Why would anyone take their “raciest” stuff to a Klan ralley. I don’t want them having my thongs and negligees.