Fun with pumpkins

I don't know what it is, but whenever a holiday rolls around, I feel the need to cover my apartment in holiday-specific decorations.

Oh wait. In fact I do know why I have this unfortunate compulsion--it's called nature AND nurture. That is, assuming my mother's affinity for decorating is a result of genetics. You see, every Friday after Thanksgiving, my family used to march upstairs and start an assembly line. One person would stand up in the terrifying, freezing-cold attic and start handing boxes to the person standing on the ladder steps, who would hand that box off to the person standing on the second floor, who would hand that to another person, who would go through the boxes to figure out where everything goes.

On average, there are probably about 15 boxes, each filled to the brim with decorative orbs for the window panes, Christmas CDs (including the Carpenters--hollah!), advent calendars, stockings, garland for the banisters and three separate nativity scenes to (I kid you not) name a few.

I always thought this was normal.

You know what else I thought was normal? Bringing out the life-sized rabbit, complete with a hat and bright blue trousers, for Easter, dressing our street lamp up like a cornstalk for Thanksgiving and placing a moving, eerie-sound-producing, fluorescently lit spider on the front lawn for the 3 weeks preceding Halloween.

In short, we know how to celebrate. So this year, since I'm far from home for at least a few holidays, I've started to get the itch to decorate. Of course, I don't know how well the Scooby would take to my decor-antics, so I'm trying to tone it down--there will be no moving spiders. But then, the other day I was in Target and I wanted to buy EVERYthing. There were Halloween dish towels and wash cloths, Halloween mixing bowls and paper lanterns. It was all so adorable that suddenly I could understand why my mother has filled our attic in Virginia so that there are more holiday decorations than dust bunnies.

I decided that I should go on a hunt for tasteful holiday decorations. What I really wanted were some things from Gump's, because, despite the name, they have the most beautiful decorative items. But, per usual, I couldn't afford any of it. See exhibit A, the beautiful glass pumpkins for $180 a pop.












Even the evil green men below, although much more reasonable at $45, were a tad more than I wanted to spend for something I would display for a mere 3 weeks.









So I finally settled on this. It's from Target and at $9.99, plus the price of tea light candles to light the sucker up, I was able to get my Halloween decorating fix.






Of course, you never know if I'm done. One day this week, Scooby might come home to find one of these hanging from the living room ceiling...