When you live far away from the majority of your friends and all of your family, you tend to say “What’s the point?” to a lot of things. Decorating for Halloween for example. I mean, no one but the four of us will ever see it. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. The UPS driver who comes to my house 2 to 3 times a week (give or take) gets to see them. And Derek’s players who come over for a home-cooked meal might notice them. But really…Derek doesn’t care about Halloween decorations. The boys think our decorations should be a gigantic spider climbing over the roof of our home toward a humongous web blocking our front door and obviously, that’s not happening. They think my decorations are boring. So…what’s the point?
But honestly, it’s near impossible to have a major holiday like Halloween roll around and not put up a toothy pumpkin or two. I do have cute Halloween decorations that in the end serve no other purpose but to change up my regular decor. I guess that’s reason enough to put them up.
I try to keep it simple. Nothing too fancy. Nothing too elaborate. Nothing bleeding. Nothing scary. No gigantic spiders. No humongous webs. Sorry kids. Mama ain’t got time for that.
The two pictures below are a must every Halloween. The one on the left is of 2-year-old Bentley, dressed as a Gap teddy bear at the McFarland pumpkin patch in Norman. This pic was snapped at the end of a photo shoot with my mom. The bear was totally over it.
The pic on the right was Palmer’s first Halloween. Both boys spent their first Halloweens dressed up as Dalmatians (we had two Dalmatians at the time.) Bentley was a fireman to go with Palmer’s Dalmatian. By this time the following year, we were living in Southern California and I was the one who was totally over it.
Decorating with past holiday family pictures is my holiday decor fallback. This one is another favorite, featuring the cutest Storm Trooper and Yoda you’ve ever seen. And our sweet Freddie did such a good job posing for the picture when all he really wanted to do was get away from everyone and find a quiet place to lay down.
Let me reiterate, I like decorating with pictures. Wouldn’t you if you had a picture like this one? I mean, look at how cute this little pumpkin was! His Aunt Gee had given him a pumpkin onesie from Gymboree for his first Halloween. He’s so stoic, sitting there holding his little hands together, I can’t get over it.