Every Oct. 31, Americans join together to try to scare the daylights out of one another. This can be accomplished by turning your normally welcoming home into a forbidden haunted house and your precious landscaping into a spooky graveyard. On Halloween, trick-or-treaters expect more than sugary delights: they want a spine-tingling combination of fear and fun.
Assess your front yard before you decide on a theme. A nice , flat yard with few trees screams out to be transformed into a creepy cemetery. Leave the dead and dried-out plantings and fallen leaves in place to add to the ambience. Longs Drugs in Sonoma sells a Skeleton Chain Link Fence ($14.99) the hairy skull’s eyes light up and a string of them makes for a scary sidewalk or driveway border.
The Queen of Mean doll available at The Cornerstore. Photo by Ryan Lely.
Place in your yard a grouping of plastic tombstones (three for $14.99), also available at Longs. Do-it-yourselfers can make their own by painting long, flat cardboard boxes granite grey, adding their own tasteless epitaphs, and securing the gravestones on the lawn with tent spikes. No haunting is complete without a spook. Longs’ Airblown Inflatable Graveyard Zombie ($79.99), a six-foot high bubble of terror, is just what the undertaker ordered.
A yard full of trees – whether leafless or an autumnal color spectrum – can become a forbidden forest. Adorn trees with any number of creature features. Kaboodle in Sonoma has life-sized crows in several different poses ($7.95), a six-foot string of Chinese-style jack-o’-lantern lights ($18.95), a menacing long-fanged and silver-sequined spider and a shimmering black owl form with orange eyes ($19.95).
“One way to entice trick-or-treaters to your front door is by lighting up the area with jack-o’-lanterns, which kids of all ages love to make,” said Galeen Brown, who owns Field of Greens Farm in Sonoma. “We offer a wide variety of pumpkins, for both carving and decoration, at our pumpkin patch. Kids can either pick their own or select one or more from those already picked.”
You can’t spit a pumpkin seed this time of year and not hit an impressive display of pumpkins. Local farms, farmers markets, roadside vendors, grocery stores and other locations sell some of the hundreds of varieties of the squash family, to which pumpkins and gourds belong. Some of the more popular varietals include Cinderella, New England Pie, Munchkin, Little Boo and Jack Be Little.
To select the perfect pumpkin, first decide on the shape and size that will best fit your plan. Large, round pumpkins will look more whimsical when toothy smiles are carved into them, while tall, narrow pumpkins can be made to look more ghost-like. Make sure your selection will stand up straight and has at least one nice flat side for carving. Look for fresh, firm pumpkins without soft spots or too many blemishes.
Many kitchen utensils and tools can be used to carve a pumpkin. A small saw or bread knife is ideal for piercing the hard shell and making large openings. Scoop out the mush and seeds and scrape clean the inner wall with the largest spoon that will fit into the opening. Sharp kitchen knives, craft knives, and items found in any toolbox may be put to use. Metal cookie cutters are perfect for cutting in any number of shapes.
If you’re expecting to hand out goodies to gaggles of costumed kids, haunt your house’s entryway to give them a bit of a scare. Turn out the lights and fill the space with flickering candles, flying ghosts made from old, white sheets, or cardboard bats. Cover furniture in white sheets and stretch spiderwebs (with plastic spiders and doomed flies) between anything that will stand still. Longs sells both white and green Super Stretch Spider Web ($2.99). A black light makes the green webs glow in the dark.
The Corner Store in Sonoma has a flock of sinister 16-inch-high red-beaked vultures ($43) and a coven of hand-made devil dolls. The Queen of Mean ($40) is a scary old hag wearing a hat that looks like a demon’s horns. Hermione ($60) is a 32-inch-tall half-woman/half-chicken dressed in patterns and plaid. Grimacing Calista ($37) wears a high-collared spiderweb cape and long pointy boots.
“Halloween is one of our busiest times of year and our unique decorations sell very quickly,” said Toni Rothschild, who along with Renato Sottile owns the Corner Store. “We always have a lot of fun displaying the merchandise in the shop and helping our customers pick out items they’ll use to make Halloween special in their homes.”
The Corner Store, 498 First St. East, Sonoma; 707.996.2211. Hours: Sunday 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Field of Greens Pumpkin Patch, 1777 W. Watmaugh Road, Sonoma. Hours: Daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Kaboodle, 453 First St. W., Sonoma; 707.996.9500. Hours: Daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Longs Drug Stores, 201 W. Napa St. , Sonoma; 707.938.4730. Hours: Daily 7 a.m.-midnight
