[psox16]

I'm very proud and excited to say that my husband and I are going to host our very first backyard Halloween haunt. I'm fairly certain nobody in our neighborhood hosts one, and I've never actually been to a home haunt before despite years of TOTing as a child in my childhood neighborhood and with my friends in their neighborhoods. So, I'm hoping it's a hit!

Our house is at the end of a cul-de-sac, and our backyard is surrounded by woods. It's dark and creepy back there at night, so I'm going to use the fact that there's not a lot of light and that the woods can be scary to my advantage. The only challenge will be bringing in TOT's down the road to the end of the cul-de-sac. We're going to put up a sign in the yard of the family who lives at the front of the street.

I have 4 relatively minor scares planned. We get a lot of little kids, so I don't want to spend a lot of time making things super scary if the kiddos won't be able to enjoy it.

I don't have a specific theme. I'm not spending a lot of time on props, with the exception of some scarecrows which I have to build. It's fairly rudimentary, but I'm hoping that people will accept it and be excited about it since there's nothing like it in our neighborhood.

My question for all of you wonderful people is, should we name it? I see that a lot of people have very clever names for their haunts. If we do decide to name it, does anybody have any awesome ideas? Our last name is Williams, don't know if we should include that in the name or not. I would love to include something about the woods behind our house.

Take care!

 

[Dulcet Jones]

What's the name of your street? Sometimes that can be incorporated, or if the woods has a name, in either case just adding a word or two to the street name or woods name would be all you need.

 

[psox16]

Good idea! Our street name is a number, so that would be boring. But behind the woods is a creek named Sand Creek. I'll roll over some options in my head.

 

[GobbyGruesome]

Something about "edge of the woods?" Darkness at the edge of the woods? Williams Hollow?

Makes sure you come up with something you like. You don't want to be stuck with a name you hate when your haunt becomes legend!

 

[craftygirl]

How fun and exciting to be putting on your first haunt! The woods are such a great naturally spooky setting you won't have to do much to get kids scared. Good luck with your haunt and I like GobbyGruesome's name for your haunt Williams Hollow.

 

[Blarghity]

Rename your street for the night! Just make a new street sign that slips over the existing one. Rename it something suitable for the theme of your haunt. For example, if you're doing a witch theme, rename the street Witch Way and call your haunt "The Last House on Witch Way." If you really want to tie your name to it (which I would put off until having a few years under your belt), you could go with "The Williams' House of Horror" or if you want to reflect the woods, "The Williams' Wood of Terror" or "Williams' Hollow of Horror."