October 28, 2023

"So a couple of years ago, when I was doing some late-summer decluttering of my daughter’s bedroom..."

"... and had to figure out what to do with the dolls she’d outgrown, the answer came to me like a disembodied whisper: 'October’s almost here. Place them out on the lawn.'... Doll decor can be as uncomplicated as dumping a pile of tattered and disfigured dolls on your lawn, because few things are weirder than an unexplained pile of dolls... I suggest letting your own twisted whims serve as your guide. This year, for example, I’ve toyed with sticking several dolls in my shrubbery, limbs akimbo...."


Your old trash + your twisted whims = Halloween.

20 comments:

Mr. Forward said...

Holiday shopping season starts now. Menards is selling orange and black plastic boxes for storing your Halloween lawn paraphernalia. The green and red plastic boxes are for your Christmas decorations. They also have a variety of sheds available so you can conveniently store your seasonal decoration storage boxes. The sheds will also work as tiny houses when you realize you have nothing saved for retirement and are paying 28.5% on your credit cards.

tim maguire said...

Hey, I’m ahead of fashion! We added my daughter’s old dolls to our halloween display years ago. The author’s right, it’s easy to make dolls creepy.

Wince said...

"It wasn't difficult to convince Nick Frost to play the part of the retarded man-child... who's chained up in the basement...not particularly politically correct... an adult baby aspect to it that is quite creepy..."

"I will be very fortunate to be able to use my extensive doll collection and my passion for manacles."

Scott Patton said...

Twisted Whims = good name for a band

cassandra lite said...

Remember when Halloween was a day, not a season?

Is whatever phenomenon that changed it so behind the center-cannot-hold place we are now?

Or was it the other way around?

Wilbur said...

If I may, here's my favorite Halloween joke:
(Rodney Dangerfield)
Ugly? Yeah, I know I'm ugly. I'm so ugly when I open the door at Halloween the kids give ME candy.

gilbar said...

"The Cheapest, Easiest, Freakiest Halloween Decor Is a Bunch of Old Dolls"

around here, what a LOT of people do (and it ISN'T cheap); is to:
Plant a BUNCH of plants (back in the spring), and let them grow pretty tall (5 feet?)..
THEN, around Halloween (once Everyone is used to the tall plants)..
They go out (OFTEN in the middle of the night, well ALL night) and chop them down!

So around Halloween, all these big yards that had this big tall plants ALL year; are suddenly EMPTY!
It's SO SPOOKY!!
To make things EVEN creepier; they do something to their trees.. I'm not even going to describe it;
it's TOO WEIRD!

To make it EVEN creepier.. The US government will PAY them NOT to do it.. But Lots STILL Do!
[and, YES; i think alcohol is somehow involved]

FullMoon said...

No more Halloween parades in grade schools here because some people are somehow offended.
They possibly mistake Halloween for a Christian Holiday like Easter or Christmas.

Narr said...

Halloween is the apotheosis of American popular spirituality. I'm surprised Crack Emceeyore hasn't been here to damn it already.

Rocco said...

What if instead of dolls I get a bunch of old cars up on blocks and scatter them around the yard?

Oligonicella said...

cassandra lite:
Remember when Halloween was a day, not a season?

Not old enough to remember that. The season was shorter but you can look up Halloween advertisements from the 40-50s easily. You can't make an effective advertisement for Halloween treats and costumes and just show it the day of.

Caroline said...

Halloween used to be a fun and vaguely ooky child’s play. Like everything in our culture of excess, it has become an industry, with adults vying to outdo their neighbours in truly horrifying tableaux, a celebration of gore and violence which I find now disturbing. But most disturbing, I think, is the appropriation of beloved children’s toys of yesteryear— clowns and dolls— into sinister creatures. It’s like we have to eradicate innocence from any nook or corner where it might stubbornly cling. Boo.

rehajm said...

Savannah Halloween lawn decoration is blood sport, L & F…

Joe Smith said...

Now do clown dolls...

DAN said...

Caroline said it better up there but... people (adults) who get wrapped up in Halloween and fright must not have had much death in their lives, God bless 'em. "Look at my yard! Doesn't it scare you? Look, plastic gravestones and skeleton hands reaching out of the lawn!" Come with me and stand by the bed of a lifelong friend dying of cancer at three in the morning. It was eight years ago so, OK, now she's bones in the ground under a headstone. Here, have a Snickers. (Yeah, I know, chill, it's just playtime.)

Joe Smith said...

'Caroline said it better up there but... people (adults) who get wrapped up in Halloween and fright must not have had much death in their lives...'

Yes...I've had someone very close to me pass away recently. I debated getting candy at all this year but decided that it is better to hand out candy than to hide in my house. Kids like candy and it makes them happy.

But I've never understood the skeletons and bones thing...I mean I get it, but it's just not me.

A pumpkin on the porch and the porch light on will let the kids know that candy is here...

Oligonicella said...

People are interpreting Halloween decorations waaay too seriously. For most it's just amusing deco, not an attempt to strike terror.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

For some reason, my thoughts went with yard sale instead of Halloween decorations, despite the big clue "Halloween is coming" at the beginning.

We don't do Halloween decorations, never have.

Narr said...

Why can't we be more like the Mexicans, with their Day of the Dead?

Come to think of it, that's becoming a thing here . . .

I like candy myself, but Halloween is my least favorite holiday in much the same way that horror movies may be my least favorite genre.

mikee said...

With enough decor for camouflage, one can hide out in plain sight, then leap upon or at least towards completely unsuspecting kids, terrorizing them. My pediatrician wife did this, dressed as a green faced witch. She claimed it was her due for tolerating the screaming little ones the rest of the year.