ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Just when you think you’ve noticed every detail of the Halloween display on Cowan Avenue, there’s another — the bones of a hand sticking up from the dirt, a cutesy pumpkin lantern hanging from a tree branch.
It’s like Halloween threw up here.
There’s Pennywise, Michael Myers, impaled skulls stuck in the lawn — the grass of which can hardly be seen beneath the multitude of creepy creatures of every variety.
Shannon Johnson, 27, and Nicole Follett, 29, live here, and they look forward to October the way some people look forward to a vacation.
“I can’t wait to set up for Halloween,” Follett says.
“Usually everything is stored in the basement for the year, and I’m down doing laundry just looking at them, like, I can’t wait for October to come to put that stuff back out.”
Johnson estimates they’ve spent at least $4,000 in the last three years on decorations, partly because poor weather means some pieces had to be replaced.
He says it takes about three days to set up, and then every day he spends an hour working on it, between setting up for the evening and taking some decorations inside at the end of the night.
He says the enthusiasm for decorating their home began about three years ago when they put just a couple of decorations outside, and noticed people stopping to have a look.
The couple loved seeing the smiles their decorations brought to people’s faces, and they decided they’d try to outdo themselves every year since.
“It’ll blow your mind in the nighttime how many people pull up — sometimes it looks like a McDonald’s drive-thru, with cars on each side of the road and a crowd out front. It’s like an amusement park sometimes,” Johnson laughed.
“A lot of people say that people don’t have Halloween spirit anymore, so by seeing this, it’s bringing it back for a lot of people.”
Follett says the display is enjoyed by young and old alike.
“We had a man and a woman there the other day, they were definitely 70 or 80 years old, and they were loving it.”
It’s daytime when The Telegram visits the couple, so the full effect with lights is not visible, but there are still two families checking out the display.
“This is my favourite house,” says six-year-old Ben Jefford. “Because it’s so spooky.”
Another visitor, Nicole Grenning, says she was driving by when her daughter noticed the house.
“She was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Mom, stop and get out!’” Grenning laughs, while her daughter, Georgia MacDonald, appears to be in awe of the decorations.
Supplying spookiness to Southlands
Across town in Southlands on Jennmar Crescent, the spirit of Halloween continues.
Carolyn Thibodeau’s house features three-headed hounds that growl and exhale fog, a jumping spider near the porch, a pumpkin king and plenty of headstones that have extended onto neighbouring properties.
She said many of the decorations were handmade by her husband.
“We’ve got some stuff across the street, and some stuff on one of the neighbour’s lawns, and over here on the second neighbour. We said, ‘Do you mind?’ And they’re like, ‘No, no.’ It just became too much spread into one, so we had to keep pushing it out.”
Thibodeau said her first year on the street there were about a dozen trick-or-treaters, and she was disappointed because she had recently moved from Nova Scotia, where her Halloween house had a reputation for being well-decorated, with hundreds of children visiting every year.
Over time, however, she has seen an increase in trick-or-treaters — last year, there were about 130, she said.
“I love kids, and to me, that’s what it’s all about, having fun with the kids," she said.
“Our neighbour across the street has two little girls, and one girl every morning last year used to walk over to the graveyard and pet the little skeleton dogs. That’s why this year we had to put a skeleton dog on her lawn. It was really cute.
“A couple of doors down, one of our neighbours, her grandson comes up and he just adores the decorations. I love that. If I can make somebody smile, that’s all I want.”
Twitter: @juanitamercer_
