It's Halloween and we have been facebooking about our "chili tradition" which got me to thinking about celebrating Halloween, when the kids were growing up. Our house was situated further back on our lot, giving us a fairly large front yard. About halfway to the street we planted two miniature stone pines the very first Christmas we moved in, having been told that these trees could be trimmed to 8 feet and never get bigger than 12 feet, well, 60 feet later we had two very large miniature pine trees with lots of pine needles littering the front yard..so, being very creative, Dad decided to use those pine needles as mounds, depicting a graveyard, with the appropriate tombstones. This was not quite enough for him, so he took one of his flannel shirts and an old pair of levis and stuffed them with newspaper,added an old pair of shoes, a ball stuffed in a pillowcase, with a face drawn on it and a baseball cap on his head, and proceeded to hang our new friend from the pine tree nearest the gate, where trick or treaters would come in for their treats.
Still not satisfied, he wired up a speaker near the tree, connecting to a microphone in the house,
where he hid behind the drapes and would talk to the ghosts and goblins who came to the gate.
The hanging man would then speak to the children. "hi Mr Cowboy, come in" What a pretty little princess, Oh my goodness, a scary pirate.. It really worked, he would ask them to help him get down, he asked one child to scratch his foot, and his footwas scratched.. Some little ones were
so scared they wouldn't even come in. Word soon spread and people were coming by in car
loads and dropping their kids off.
We continued this for a couple of years and then all the neighbor kids as well as our own, were growing up and no longer trick or treating.
Hope you enjoy this Halloween memory
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4 comments:
I definitely think we get our creative side from you and Grandpa! Its funny you mention the pine needles because I told the girls that whenever I see pine needles on the ground, I always think of you! Those needles were probably a pain for you guys but not they're kind of iconic of our childhood!
I remember dad doing that, thanks for the memory mom... love you
Oh WOW! The pine needles! Shannon is so right! I ALWAYS associate pine needles with Grandpa! This sounds like so much fun! I miss him so much, especially after hearing stories like these! Thank you for sharing them with us, Grandma! Love you!
I remember that very clearly...how fun! Thanks for sharing again! That's awesome!
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