Of course, Mom got in on it
by perusing the thrift stores until I found a red & gray striped sweater
that was perfect for Freddy. Darrin got to work on his makeup using smudged
eyeliner all over his face to create the scars & added some fake blood to
finish the look. He had a toy glove from Toys R Us that had the long razor
fingers (plastic ones) Freddy was famous for to complete his outfit.
Darrin still wore eyeglasses
& unfortunately he couldn't see well enough without them to enjoy his
evening. He solved that problem by putting a beach chair on the porch
surrounded by a plastic bucket & shovel, a tropical drink, an umbrella, even
a bit of sand & wore his prescription sunglasses.
The following year was
probably our best Halloween extravaganza! Darrin & I came up with the idea
of Cafe De'Cay. We had a carport on the side of our house with a gate at the
end that led to the backyard. Under the carport we set up a small table with a
black tablecloth. In the two chairs we sat a skeleton & a grim reaper. A
vase with black roses rested on the table. Spider webs adorned the entire gruesome
scene. Rubber bats & plastic spiders dangled from the ceiling. A large
poster board Cafe De'Cay sign in the front attracted our "customers".
But the real attraction was
the tour of the Cafe De'Cay kitchen which we offered those brave enough to
enter. In the dark backyard with some eerie lighting & music playing we set
up a couple of folding tables covered in white sheets adorned with fake blood,
fake fingers, plastic knives & cleavers along with other assorted bizarre,
creepy items.
I made aprons for our chefs,
Darrin, his best friend & his dad, from old white sheets. Another trip to
the thrift store for long sleeve white shirts made a good background for our
bottles of more fake blood. My creative juices were flowing as I had the great
idea to make chef hats using a strip of white poster board wrapped around their
heads & stapled (to itself, not their heads). Tissue paper bunched up on
the top made the ballooned tops. They all looked pretty good if I do say so
myself.
A day or two before
Halloween we went to a few supermarkets & bought several kidneys, livers
& a few hearts of something or other. It was pretty gross in our fridge for
a couple days. Darrin & his friend made a disgusting soup of god only knows
what. They spread out all the internal organs on dishes placed on the tables,
drizzled blood all over & made a gag worthy concoction of meals.
The guys made up their faces
to look really scary & manned the tables to gross out the kids willing to
tour the kitchen. Donning my witch costume I stayed out front to give candy to
the little kids & ask the older ones if they would like a complimentary tour of the backyard kitchen. I only let a few back at a time while the others listened to the
screams from the yard.
One poor little girl
wouldn't even come up to the carport so I walked out to the sidewalk with some
candy for her. She tentatively asked, "Is Freddy back there?" I
replied, "No, Freddy isn't here." She skeptically said, "He was
here last year." Guess Darrin made quite an impression.
That was great fun back in
the day. Lately it seems that we are reduced to handing out candy to teenagers
carrying pillowcases who aren't really dressed as anything. It is fun
interacting with the little kids but they seem to be fewer & fewer. Two
years ago we ran out of candy pretty early so last year I bought a lot more.
There were less kids than usual which meant we were munching on candy until
Christmas.
I told Lou I think I'd
prefer a year off from all the Trick or Treaters. So, maybe we'll go out to
dinner & a movie or just hide in the back of the house with the lights off.
Happy Halloween! Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment