This October we held our annual Halloween bash once more. We again covered our house in potion books and cobwebs. And, as usual, we spent months creating costumes, collecting prizes and preparing games. And yes, our brains were both donated by Abby Normal. (How did you know?)

As I have mentioned at every possible opportunity, transforming our house into a festive haunt takes a tremendous amount of work. However, despite the ominous layers of spectral decay prolific at our party, some attendees can’t comprehending how the bedecking could take more than a day or two. If you doubt the validity of our toils, help us decorate for a few hours. The tiny area you’ll complete with an evening’s work will have you convinced. (Yes, I am trying to trick you into helping us decorate.)

Since I’m already whining, allow me to continue with a dissection of the lengthy process involved in transforming just one small space from tedious to terrifying. Please refer to the picture of the staircase above and the steps to its creation below:

1. Get a splendidly morbid idea, preferably one you haven’t used in the 15+ years you’ve been spooking. (This can be pretty tough when your creative juice have already been digested a few times. Isn’t there some rule about how many times you can drink your pee?)
2. Disassemble Jason’s bad idea. (Sorry Jason, your concept for the staircase didn’t look very good.)
3. Cover one wall in black gossamer sheets for the benefit of some soon-to be-added pallid bits.
4. Cover those sheets strategically with black creepy cloth.
5. Add squirming mummy hands, AKA pallid bits.
6. Add stringy white cloth to make it appear like the mummy hands have been losing their stuff n’ stuff.
7. Add some ragged grey cloth like your grandma would add doilies.
8. Add a string of bat lights.
9. Hang dismembered hands on opposite wall.
10. Give those hands some holey cloth and eyeballs to hold onto.
11. Wrap the whole area in a thick coating of cobwebs.
12. Add a few final touches like flaming candlesticks and rabid rats.
13. Power up everything with some imaginative extension cord placement and a whole lot of batteries.

That little zone took no less than several hours and over 100 pushpins to create. But at least we only had another twenty areas or so to go afterward…

Although a party wouldn’t be fitting for Halloween without some dark ambiance, you’ve got to follow through after you set the mood. Photos by professionals, carnival games, a piñata, crafts, bingo, treats, a costume contests… we made sure our party wasn’t all dressed up with nowhere to go.

We had roughly 70 or so guests show up, a pretty normal turnout. It was a wicked, insane, sugary, chaotic, colorful, noisy, crowded, sticky, amusing, competitive, exhausting night. In other words, it was a typical Sabin party.

Thanks everyone that joined us in celebrating the most horrible (and best) holiday. No party would be a success without fun-loving people. And a big thank you to the tremendous kin and friends that helped us put up, clean up, take down or run games. We had more helpers this year than we ever have. Due to that atypical assistance, our decorations are almost all contained at this point. That is unprecedented progress given we are often still packing away Halloween when it’s time to put up Christmas. Thank you!