Getting All Spooked Up for Halloween

Halloween is a major holiday for my family. Halloween was my mother's birthday , it is mine and my husband's anniversary, and of course the kids get super excited because it's Halloween! We really do it up with full blown decorating. Inside and out the house gets an overhaul of spooky delight that the whole family looks forward to every year. Our kids are young, nine and five years old, so they REALLY get into all of the festivities. We put our favorite Halloween movies on, I cook a great meal and then we are off, the decorating begins! 

We have not always decorated the outside of our house until the last few years. I never really wanted to mess with it until my husband went and got a bunch of stuff and just like that we started a new family tradition. Now I really love it because my children enjoy it so much and it really ramps up the excitement of the holiday. 

I keep it fairly simple when decorating the yard for Halloween. The weather down south this time of year is sketchy at best. One day it will be clear and 80 degrees out, then the next is windy, rainy and cold. I don't break the bank on my outdoor decorations because if anything gets blown away or broken it won't be the end of the world to the kids. Anything that I put out can be easily replaced, no problem.

I always start with spider webs on the bushes. This is SO easy to do and looks really cool. I try and get one or two different colors of webs, just for variety, and then all you have to do is stretch them out. Now this might take a while to do, but it is worth the effort. This was my daughter's job this year and she did great at it, with just a little help. After we got all of the stretching done, then the fun part, adding the critters. We always get lots of plastic spiders of all sizes and colors, but my kids wanted to add skulls and eyeballs this year. I've got to say it really added to the creepy and cool look. 

Next I do my gravestones. These are so cheap and easy to do, and it just makes everything more fun! These are not the world's sturdiest decorations, let me tell you. One mighty breeze and your cemetary could be flying down the street! This year, to keep them firmly planted, I took some simple wooden skewers and duct taped them to the back of my graves to keep them upright and stationary. So far, so good. The wind is whipping here, but the graves are standing firm!

Some of my final touches for my Halloween landscape are, of course, pumpkins. I cannot say enough how much I love pumpkins! Right now I have three pumpkins, all sitting in my planters where my flowers have died off. I will probably end up with at least three more. Nothing says Halloween more than some coolly carved pumpkins on your front porch. We never carve our pumpkins until the weekend before Halloween, so they look fresh and the carvings will really pop.

This year we also added some sugar skulls because I love them and I thought these were so pretty! The final step is the zombie tape stretched across my columns.I really like this because it is so easy to do, even easier to take down, and the trick or treaters love it. Halloween decorating is my absolute favorite and really kicks off the entire holiday season. Here's to a safe and happy Halloween to all!

Teresa Filgis is a freelance writer with specialties in parenting, gardening and camping/outdoor living. She is a wife and mother of two and she loves spending quality time out in nature with her family. Teresa is a graduate of Austin Peay State University. You can follow her on Instagram @tfilgis.