I've been fortunate in not only not having Halloween haters on my street, but I've been a trend leader for most of a decade now.
For a long time, I didn't decorate at home because I was involved with various charitable haunts. But a decade ago, I got fed up with fighting at the door every Halloween. I like big dogs and they've always tended to be territorial. So I got sick and tired of wrestling with them at the door with a big bowl of candy in my hands. So I moved the candy distro outside on the front steps. The next year neighbors next door and across the street did the same. The year after that, about a third of the families on the street were doing it.
A couple years after that, I added non-jack-o-lantern carved pumpkins. Those spread the next year as well.
Then I started playing old suspense and horror radio shows every Halloween to entertain myself in the ToT lulls. The next year, someone started playing scary sound effects, and the year after that two people added campy Halloween music. I've since switched to Midnight Syndicate and the like because all the other stuff drowns out my stories. lol
I did witch lanterns one year and now Halloween lanterns line the street.
I put out reapers and skeletons about 3 years ago, and each year, more of those appear on the street.
Last year, I did the ultimate candy bowl, a steel casket with a skeleton, and the rib cage stuffed full of candy. Let the kids pick their own candy out, rather than handing it out. It was the hit of the neighborhood. Can't wait to see how people attempt to compete with that! However, I doubt they'll get have the town's police force coming around to check it out.
I do know I already have people (friends in other towns) planning on copying it to some extend.
But no matter what they try to do to compete with my awesome candy bowl. They won't win. I'm adding a haunt to my display this year, in the form of a spider web tunnel, filled with dropping and jumping spiders and a few other things. Little kids can still come up the driveway to avoid the scares, but they'll have to get past my new groundbreaker. Not your typical groundbreaker, either - it is breaking out of the dirt in a wheelbarrow. There is also a remote control spider to chase kids around.
And in 2015, when some of them again think they'll catch my coattails, I put up the haunted shack in the driveway. Maybe by that time, they'll learn their lessons and volunteer to help instead of competing.
No rest for the wicked! Catch me if you can!
