*Scroll to the bottom to watch David's walk-through video of our Halloween yard!*
I think this was David's favorite Halloween ever. He has decided this year to again do Harry Potter theme in our yard. I think this is the third time, but this year was focusing solely on the first book/movie. Our budget for Halloween is usually $50, but between having to buy our own pumpkins (we usually get them for free), buying way more candy, having the propane fire pit on, and the numerous trips to the Dollar Store and Michaels, we definitely spent a lot more than $50... Scott and Ash pitched in too of course with both time and the misc. purchases.
There were many evenings the last couple months spent crafting instead of playing games or watching movies. Dave borrowed a few feature items for the set-up, but 90% of it was ours or DIY crafted by us, after being envisioned by Dave. The last 3 nights were crunch time.
Thursday evening it was time to finally carve the pumpkins. We picked lots of smaller pumpkins to hang in the trees for floating pumpkins, and Scott and Ash did the two bigger ones. I shamelessly opted out of carving this year. Every year I try, and every year I hate it. I helped the kids cut a couple open and play with the guts, but that was the extent of it. While they carved, I finished up one of the big crafts, and worked on Dom's Halloween costume. (Nothing like leaving it til the last minute!)
Emilia: gets totally in the zone
Dom: bored of this activity after 35 seconds and moves on to reading his "newspaper" (Toys R Us flyer)
The mirror of Erised. I was in charge of anything lettering related this year, so a lot...
Some more of our crafting/detail projects...
At the end of Halloween night Dave realized 2/3 of these Bertie Botts boxes had been snatched from our display. At least that's all they took?
I hope these wand boxes were appreciated - they were a pain in the butt and took for EVER!
This was set up for a couple weeks leading up to Halloween. We had people every day walking/biking/driving by and taking pictures of it already haha.
The Philosopher's Stone
On Friday, Scott came over around 1030am, and then he and Dave were outside all day setting up. Because of COVID, David decided to have the display "open" for two nights instead of one. Our neighborhood was pretty split about their plans for Halloween, but there were lots of people who indicated they'd love to come check it out a different day as they weren't doing trick-or-treating with their kids and avoiding the crowds on Halloween night. Friday evening traffic was greater than expected. It was a steady flow of families coming by. We allowed one family/bubble in the yard at a time, so it worked out really well. The kids tried on their costumes to "prep" for Halloween and trick-or-treating, and stayed out late on the street with us running around and being generally bonkers. They were SO excited for Halloween and trick-or-treating and practiced all day. Dom talked about it all day Friday and Saturday morning. Last year they were a little too shy/nervous about it, but I had a good feeling about this year.
I got to reuse the owl costume from two years ago!!! <3 She'd been "hoo-hoo-ing" and "lap-lap-ing" all week, and she was ready to be that owl!
Dom is obsessed with playing garbage truck/garbage man, so this was only natural. It almost didn't happen though. Until Thursday he was just going to be Darth Vader again this year because I hadn't figured anything out for his costume. Thursday morning Emilia and I went to Talize & Value Village, and I finally felt inspired. I picked up the overalls, vest and toque, and then used hot glue and felt to make the Waste Management logos. After this, I painted his bucket green and taped a big Waste Management logo to that, too. Well... he was STOKED!!! His smile says it all.
I didn't really get many pictures of Dave's set up, because I know he was going to go in with his camera and take some much better pictures or video. However, he had a theme as you would walk through the yard, you'd walk through the story of the book. Starting with the letters/brick wall, moving through Diagon Alley and the Hogwarts Express, then to the classes/great hall/common room, with the sorting hat behind, then down towards the Philosopher's Stone and the mirror of Erised. We have limited space and budget, so the main thing here is the attention to detail. Right down to cutting off one of Scabbers' front toes. Dave puts hours of time into setting up audio clips for each section that play as you walk through as well. Oh, one more thing! Every year, Dave projects something onto the office window, and this year I suggested he project the first Harry Potter movie. GENIUS! It was nice for us standing outside for hours, and nice for parents to hang out and watch as their kids checked out the display (or after the parents also checked it out because who can resist?!).
Little garbage man <3. I'm so proud of how much he's grown up since last year.
On Friday we had this little family with two kids come by, and I found out it was the third time they'd been by since the set-up started weeks ago haha. The kids came in their Harry Potter robes and with their wands and everything. Too good. Also, you can see our Fat Lady portrait, and some of the floating candles/pumpkins in this shot.
Another genius addition this year was the propane firepit outside the yard. Nice way for us to keep warm, but also a great way to attract people from the main drag to let them know we are here.
No shoes? No worries!
Saturday was our full moon COVID Halloween. The weather was gorgeous all day, and Friday too - it would not have worked with rain. My parents and Aunty Sonya came over and we had homemade pierogi pizzas for dinner (seriously, something so delicious about those pizzas). Then they all came trick-or-treating with the kids and I. Dave came for a bit too, but I've learned to expect less of a commitment from him that way - his focus is the yard, mine can be the traditions with our kids. The first year or two this may have caused a fight haha.
Gramma and Grandpa came over the night before to check out the yard and brought little goody bags for the kids. Emilia is playing with the little bucket of slime they got. Making muffins she says. In her owl costume of course. Every chance they got the last few days they were in their costumes. I love that they were mostly DIY, and comfortable (key in my mind for fun Halloween costumes)
Uncle Adam came over for a while in the afternoon. It happened to coincide with a Zoom de Jong family chat with Bo Bo Moma. She was having a bad day with the dementia, but it was nice to see her and hear her voice. She was excited to see us and the kids too! After she was gone, Dom came on screen in his costume and actually talked a little bit about it. I was shocked since he's normally so shy!
Aunty Rachel, Uncle Kyle and Rebecca came by to do a trick-or-treat at our place as part of their Halloween tour. Emilia agreed to put on her costume and take a picture with Rebecca. I can't even with how cute they are. Emilia loves Minnie Mouse, so she was stoked to see Rebecca and Aunty Rachel dressed up as Minnie; a little less sure about Uncle Kyle as Mickey haha.
At around 5:30 we set out for our trick-or-treating. I have low expectations every year, because that's a lot of pressure to put on two little kids. Get dressed, go knock on doors, talk to strangers, take candy, and go for a long walk around the neighbourhood in the dark with spooky things everywhere. Alas, a COVID Halloween is SO our speed! Less people, candy laid out on tables for you to grab, less knocking, and less spooky stuff.
At our first house right across the street, there were 4-6 people (the pots and pans people from earlier in COVID) sitting around a fire with little goody bags on the table. Emilia said, "trick or treat" as we were walking up, and then when I prompted her "thank you", saying, "Yay! Now what do we say?" she just froze, and said, "Good." instead of thank you. It was cute enough to work haha.
This was a semi-typical house, with candy laid out and a little encouraging note about these strange times and staying safe. Most places had at least one person monitoring the table so that no one took all the candy, but isn't this perfect? I think it should stay like this every year - it just makes so much more sense!
That's about all I have for pictures of that evening. After a while (longer than I expected/wanted to be out), we headed back home and the kids went through their loot of candy. The kids did great, and Dom wanted to keep going, Emilia was trucking along being a great sport, but I could hear her saying/singing that her feet hurt haha. Time to go home. People seemed to love their costumes, too. It is so key that they be warm enough and comfortable, or else they're just going to be miserable all night, so I aim for practicality every time.
Meanwhile, David was on crowd-control duty (joking, but not really), for our street. We have NEVER had so many people come down our way. We had people driving to see it, we had families come by more than once, we had tipsy adults come by a second time after their kids were in bed. We set up cones on the street to encourage cars to slow down and give our yard a wide berth, and quite a few times we had too many people waiting to go into our yard to even fit safely into the cones. We chatted and got to know some of our neighbours better, and many of them hung out out there for quite a while.
Halloween isn't my favorite holiday/season for a few reasons. 1. I am always cold. 2. I don't like all the spooky/gory/horror stuff. 3. It takes up a LOT of David's time and I'm a single parent for a while leading up to it and after it for clean up.
However, this year just seemed extra fun/special. Maybe because it was our first real sense of "normalcy" since COVID started almost 8 months ago. Also, our kids were just at the right age this year. It was refreshing to see people, talk to people, get outside, work together for a common goal, etc. It's also fun to see Dave receive so many compliments on the set-up. We don't quite get it, because it feels pretty modest to us, but Harry Potter is a multi-generational thing. Everyone loves it and appreciates it. Also, no one else in our neighbourhood that I saw did a Halloween set-up that wasn't very "Halloween-y". There was one other house on our loop that always goes all out, and he did again this year with his projectors, lights, music, and awesome set up. He said he was going to start a GoFundMe so we can buy his neighbour's house and then he and Dave can collaborate haha.
Now that Halloween is over, I can actually start thinking about Christmas soon! That's my favorite holiday/season! Looking forward to starting some Christmas traiditions this year! (Not quite ready to decorate yet, don't worry Dave).
Until next year! The Chamber of Secrets!
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