Thursday, October 23, 2008

Fall Decorating

For the record, today Shannon turns 19. I had not even noticed that for past two weeks or so, since Laura turned 16 on the 8th, I have had a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old. Times are much better than when they were 0, 1 and 2.

I am not so much into fall decorating. Pumpkins are a hazard. One year when Shannon was around 7, we had a big birthday party and invited all the little girls from school, about 17 of them. We had four perfect pumpkins out on our step that year. The morning after the party, all four pumpkins were clean gone without a trace. I have always wondered whether someone from the party noticed how nice they were and came back and kyped them.

There have also been a number of years when our pumpkins have been smashed in the street. Why ours? When the rest of the neighbors' pumpkins were all intact? I never figured it out, but we stopped putting out pumpkins. We carve Jack-o-Lanterns on Halloween Eve and set them out for one night of flickering.

Many of my neighbors go all out for Halloween and buy fake cobwebby stuff and dead cornstalks. Personally, I have enough REAL spiderwebs in my shrubbery. Fall is a mess all on its own--you really don't need to add to the jumble. For instance, I have some perfectly Halloweeny looking dead marigolds in my front landscaping:




By the way, here is my house with the newly painted brown shutters. They were faded maroon vinyl, which was almost pink after about seven years of sun and rain. After we replaced the front door and put in one that is fiberglass stained to look like wood (I wrote about that), the pinky plastic shutters were truly hideous. So here's to a big improvement!



I am posting some more pictures of dead summer flowers. This is the perfect way to decorate for Halloween. It's free, it's effortless, it's already there! I'm not much for Halloween, but if I can get off this easy, well, why not?


Here is an ominous dead hanging basket.




Observe the eerily crisp brown plants on the right side in this combination planter.




What could be a better way to pave the way for small trick-or-treaters than yellowed hostas decaying on the path?

Who ever said I was a wet blanket when it comes to holiday decorating?

1 comment:

Ruth MacC said...

You have some sense of humour Ruth!!!