Halloween, I’m feeling you! The kids have their costumes gathered, there’s been a few tarantula sightings on our street (THE BEST!), the weather is finally cooling down, and the decorations are up.
I’m one of those who can’t help myself this time of year and ends up buying all the crap. When the trees start pumping out rainbow miracles, I lose my mind. To avoid spending money and time and storage on junk, I’ve been pretty intentional the past few years about keeping decorations scaled back and simple. Focusing on consumable pumpkins that don’t need storing all year, easy crafty things my kids and I can make, and incorporating items that are already in my house has helped. I like to throw everything we’ve got at one or two areas of the house only. Going big in one place feels like we’re celebrating big without being swallowed by clutter at every turn. Last year it was the den:
This year it’s the family room:
I painted the fireplace cabinet finally. A very, very unstyled peek at those shelves:
Beyond this, the only other thing going on inside is the Halloween calendar hanging in the kitchen. On the subject of simplicity, heed my cautionary tale: I’m feeling very over this obligation, but I think I’m locked in until my kids graduate. No “growing out of it” in sight. I tried to pawn off the filling of it to my daughter this year, but she wasn’t having it. I’ve gotten very good at coming up with simple activities for it, and my kids are bananas over it, so I’m gonna continue on with joy and thankfulness. But man, I wish I would have thought about the long term commitment when I made it.
We did up the front porch too. But my dear children are waging battle against bedtime tonight, so that will have to wait until another day! Until then, hope you are Halloweening it up!
SUBURBAN * POP 