Halloween 2010-Epic Win!

I have loved Halloween since I was a kid. I had parties every year, kids coming over and in Junior High, it usually ended up with a rousing rendition of spin the bottle. Maybe that is why I like the scary holiday so much.
When the kids were little, I decorated with little things, keeping the macabre to a minimum. My girlfriend, the one I hung out with all the time, started having parties with her friend, who lived in the country. This allowed for hay bails, large fields and all the treats a kid could ask for. We went for years, until the adults decided it now was more for them than the kids. It seemed logical at that point to give it a rest.
The house I bought for myself, after the divorce, was on a long street, populated by mostly children. I made the purchase of the house because it was affordable, and it felt right to me. Ever get the feeling like you feel right at home, even though you don't live there? That is how I felt when I saw my house for the first time. The first Halloween we spent in the house, we noticed something exceptional going on. Almost every house went above and beyond your average decor. There was a haunted garage, haunted driveway that led back, back, back deep into the yard to the garage where the candy was hard earned for the kids brave enough to travel that far. One house had a high school kid, who saved his money all year long to create elaborate scenes in his front yard. We had a haunted front porch. I knew then, I was on an exceptional street and felt lucky we all took the unspoken oath to make it fantastic for the kids(and us).
The next house we lived in, the one Michael and I bought as newly weds, in a different town, had a u street that was perfect for Halloween. Once again we were not disappointed by the grown-up interaction, the participation was over the top. I took all of my dead bodies, bottles of fake blood and began to establish myself as a full blooded (Pun intended) Halloween Queen.
The move to Texas might as well have been across the world. We knew little if anything about Texas, or the south in general, as far as traditions, holidays or Halloween , in particular. The first year there, I looked at the monster of a house we had bought and shook my head. Halloween would be tough to decorate here. I took my bodies out of their boxes and placed them through the yard. The skulls came out of hiding next, then the bats, then the ghosts, and finally the tomb stones. As I spread out the ghouls of Halloween past, I went outside to survey the layout. I noticed not one decoration was in sight. Daunted, but not given in, I put up my decorations the best I could, in preparation for the big day.
A neighbor came over while I was adjusting a ghost here and there, fussing with the sheer fabric, tucking in the props through out the yard, making things look "perfect". "Excuse me..." the neighbor hailed, while waving her hands at me. "Oh, I am so sorry. Hi, I'm Kellie. I was just fussing with the decorations," I called back, walking toward the woman at the curb. "Hmm, yes, about that," she rolled her eyes and sighed deeply before she finished her thought,"I think you should know, we don't do that here." I stuttered and stammered, feeling my face grow red, "Wha, what? I am sorry, what don't you do here?" "We don't put up Satanic decorations here. We don't believe in that sort of thing. I know you are from out of town, I thought you should know." I stood looking at this condemnation in this woman's face and thought to myself, "What the hell have we done..."
Later after Michael got home from work, I told him the story with tears in my eyes. "I don't belong here. I don't fit in," I told him as the tears fell down my face onto his shoulder. "Baby, screw them," Michael said soothingly. " I felt so down, so belittled, "I just want to go home," I cried.
The next couple of years I did nothing for Halloween. I bought candy, very few kids came down our busy street, so Halloween night was spent wishing I were back home celebrating with my friends, laughing at the funny ideas we had to make things even grosser.
When the kids got to be in high school, I decided to have parties at home to keep them off the streets and out of trouble. We taught Texans to bob for apples, did the donut on a string game, all the while keeping my decorations to myself in the back yard. One year after I had lived in our house for some time, I decided, I didn't give a crap if "They didn't do that here." I decorated the yard and added a few more acquisitions to my already packed boxes. I hung ghouls, brought the ghosts out of hiding and proudly displayed my tombstones with the skulls being lit from the inside. The few kids that did show up loved it! The next year more came to see the house that had the bodies in the yard, the sound track from the windows and the blood dripping down the door.
When we bought our current home in the summer, I looked at Michael and said, "This is a great Halloween house." Our Realtor looked momentarily puzzled, but Michael knew exactly what I meant. The street itself has very little traffic. The house has an island of sorts surrounded by pine trees in the front and we have a courtyard leading to our front door. From the moment we moved in, we have done nothing but work on the house. We have had to fix the broken, add storage, rearrange several times, and just generally try and figure out how to make it ours. I didn't have much time to get ready for Halloween this year, but I did take everything I had, plus my newest acquisitions, and decorate the front the best I could for now.
At first it was slow Halloween night, a few kids here and there, and then it happened, kids filled the street, parents were dressed up, too. Glow sticks, pillow cases, kids large and small, all started to come. With only strobe lights, candles and the talking ghosts with glowing eyes for light, they all "oohed and ahhed" at the decorations. Pictures were taken, the parents complimented us, the neighbor stopped by for a chat and some wine, it was the Halloween I had dreamed of since moving to Texas. As the crowd thinned out, Michael and I waved and yelled back,"Happy Halloween", my beloved looked at my smiling face and said, "Next year it will be even better."