“(Watching children) try to pick out all the little things.” Skeleton crew “It’s almost like a seek and find book,” she said. With signs pointing different directions “for the candy” or “to be scared,” trick-or-treaters can visit the creepy day care yard complete with an assortment of dolls on a playground or attend a deranged clown birthday party in the garage. In past years, her haunt has received upward of 500 trick-or-treaters. “That brings me joy - seeing other people immersed in it.” It’s just bringing something different to everybody for a couple nights,” Larson said. “You can take anything and make it into something. This year, spider webs made of beef netting are catching some of the spookiest bugs in her October yard along with monsters ranging from a 14-foot skeleton to a 2-foot spider. To her, each season is a chance to build new stories in the yard with anything she can imagine. So she started with a spider tree, and the web of decorations - many of them built by hand - got bigger and bigger. “We had kids and I didn’t want them to be scared of stuff - I wanted them to have fun with the scary stuff.” “We started doing it because we had a huge corner lot,” she said. Her yard is more than light bulbs and blowup decorations. With different haunts and attractions in her front, side and backyards, it takes her family up to two weeks to decorate for the holiday on York Avenue in Marion. “It just makes he happy.” Think of the childrenĬhildren are the reason Kara Larson, 46, started decorating her yard 14 years ago. “I like watching other people get scared,” he said. The preteen is already desensitized to being scared, he claims - but watching others jump still is a thrill. Dark, is a motion-activated, 3-foot skeleton that jumps to 9 feet in an instant. He just kept wanting to go back and buy them.”Īshton’s taste for scaring others has gotten to the point that all his Christmas and birthday gifts are now Halloween animatronics. “At first he was completely freaked out,” said Sarah. Now with 20 animatronics in their yard, 11-year-old Ashton keeps the spirit alive after a transformative visit to Spirit Halloween. ![]() ![]() Sarah Wendt’s house has worked for a couple years to earn the title of the “Halloween” house on her block of Rolling Glen Drive in Marion, all thanks to efforts from her son. Starting youngįor other families, the haunting starts young. With a 10-foot dragon, 12-foot archway, dinosaur, animatronic Pennywise and skeletons, Halloween isn’t about morbidity for her family - it’s about making spirits bright before the “holiday season” as the weather grows dull and dreary. “That’s a real community thing, and I like that about American culture that they have this sense of community around the holiday.” “I love seeing the kids come up and looking at everything in the yard,” she said. In the UK, that type culture doesn’t exist around the holiday the way it does here. The more animatronics, the better - and she still hasn’t gotten used to them, still scaring herself when she gets the mail every day.Ī native of England, McAtee said the collection is a reflection of the community culture that the holiday embraces - a collection they’ve built since they got married on Nov. “It’s about filling every single space without breaking my neck on guide ropes.” “My husband is obsessed with filling the yard with things you can see from space,” she said at one of the only houses on the street that decorates for the holiday. ![]() On C Avenue NE in Cedar Rapids, Tamsin McAtee’s yard is starting to overflow into the neighbor’s driveway with inflatables, animatronics, and all things that light up.
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