Ghoultide Decor
Anne Haney remembers a time, not that many years ago, when celebrating Halloween meant little more than stocking up on candy and displaying minimal home decorations.
“You put out a pumpkin, and that’s it,” said Haney, a 65-year-old actress who lives in Studio City.
But in recent years, Halloween displays have been getting more and more elaborate, Haney and many others have noticed.
The singular jack-o’-lantern has exploded into virtual pumpkin patches at some homes. Those cardboard-cutout witches, taped to front doors of yore, seem to have popped out in 3-D, spilling into yards, dangling from eaves and trees with lifelike hair and fabric clothing. Garlands, lights, hanging ornaments and life-size lawn displays--once synonymous only with Christmas--are appearing in more frontyards as celebratory signs of Halloween.
Also taking note of the increasing popularity of Halloween decorations, the National Retail Federation began tracking sales this year, said Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the organization. The federation estimates that consumers will spend $2.5 billion this year on Halloween decorations, cards and party favors.
“Somewhere along the line, it’s become a big thing,” Haney marveled, while strolling through her neighborhood recently.
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Just down the block from her on Morse Street, where Studio City segues into Sherman Oaks, the Polizzi family’s rollicking skeletons have been causing quite a buzz among residents.
More than 25 life-size plastic skeletons seem to have taken over the corner-lot home, some peeping out of bushes, a few standing circus-style on each others’ shoulders, as if trying to climb to the top of the house.
On the roof, a party is in full swing, complete with martini-swigging skeletons. Down below is a skeleton with an electric guitar, another at a microphone, one at a cobweb harp and another playing a xylophone of plastic bones.
“It got more elaborate this year,” said Rick Polizzi, a post-production supervisor for the animated television show “The Simpsons.” His latest innovation was wiring the skull-and-bones quartet to a motor, so that the band can really rock.
“You should see it at night!” Haney said. “It’s all lit up.”
The surge in Halloween home decorating can be explained as a confluence of culture and savvy marketing, experts say.
Costumes and candy sales aside, Halloween falls during a traditional retail lull between the back-to-school season and Christmas shopping, said James Lowry, chairman of the marketing department at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. Waking up to this potential, companies have been offering fancier Halloween ware, many modeled after traditional yuletide decorations.
Indeed, some families said they’ve been buying more Halloween decorations simply because they’re seeing them everywhere they shop.
“It’s all store-bought. Everything,” said Mari Wolchover, showing off the doll-like scarecrows, a life-size inflatable skeleton and many pumpkins adorning her house in the Walnut Acres neighborhood of Woodland Hills. She was inspired to buy strings of orange lights this year because she kept seeing them displayed.
“Halloween just gets bigger and bigger every year. It’s insane, actually,” she said.
But consumers don’t buy just because products are for sale. Decorating satisfies a deep human longing for rituals and tradition, said Judy Rosenberg, a clinical psychologist in Beverly Hills. “As a society, we are just dying to carve out roots and build stability,” she said.
Indeed, some families said that was precisely the reason they love to deck their halls for Halloween. Everyone in the Wolchover family helped out, from her husband stringing up lights, to their youngest daughter, 4, helping tie pumpkin ornaments onto tree branches. “A lot of times families don’t spend time together any more. This kind of brings our family together,” Wolchover said.
Elaborate Halloween decorations have also been drawing neighbors closer. Sandra and Don Bostrom estimate that hundreds of adults and kids visit their Sherman Oaks house near the corner of Atoll Avenue and Landale Street every year for its phantasmagoric displays.
A swarm of plastic skulls, spider webs, witches and goblins hang from a sprawling crape myrtle tree, and orange and black garlands snake around a nearby potted jade plant. Out on the lawn is a gruesome dinner party, replete with a head on a platter as the main course.
The entire family has spent the past few weeks decorating, and they’re not done yet, said the Bostroms’ 17-year-old daughter, Suzanne. Come Halloween night, there’ll be a fog machine.
Halloween decorating has even become a topic of conversation--and brewing rivalry--between some neighbors.
Stretching white polyester spider webs over his neatly trimmed bushes as his 6-year-old daughter, Katie, looked on, Jimmy Giritlian of the Candy Cane Lane area of Woodland Hills, at Winnetka Avenue and Oxnard Street, said that he and a neighbor talked about Halloween decorations over tennis. “We compared notes on what we were doing,” said Giritlian, who then began preparing a balloon-ghost to hang from his tree.
Minutes later down Jumilla Avenue, the neighbor, Dennis Venizelos, wanted to hear all about Giritlian and his ghost. “How many does he have? One? We’ll have three or four!” Venizelos said.
Not everyone plans to participate in the Halloween decorating craze, many saying they prefer to admire the lavish displays from afar.
“If people want to celebrate, that’s fine,” said Haney, the Studio City actress. “I put out one jack-o’-lantern and that’s it.”
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HALLOWEEN HAPPENINGS
Listings of Valley events. B4
