Halloween 2011: Dracula's Candy Coffin

Scary GuyWhat would Halloween be without a small scale movie set from the Harris household? This year our theme started out as a dungeon, but given time constraints, whittled itself down into "Dracula's Candy Coffin." 

Blair spent most of Sunday in the back yard, hammering and nailing away at a coffin. (The neighbors love us.) We filled the sides of the coffin with candy, but cut out a hole in the middle so "scary guy" could pop out. The set up was that Blair sat hidden beneath the coffin while my mom and I lured kids to knock on the coffin top. "Say 'trick-or-treat,'" we instructed them. They knew something was going to happen but they weren't sure what and it was fun to see even the teenagers be a bit leery of what they were letting themselves in for. Mom and I would pop open the coffin lid and Blair would shove scary guy up over the edge of the coffin with a huge "RAAHHHH!!!" 

Check out the 2 hanging flaming cauldrons...We got a LOT of kids jumping back and screaming. Even more parents. It was great. 

 I do feel bad about one little girl. For the smaller kids, I would murmer "Go easy" to Blair as they approached and he would dial back the yell and have scary guy ease up slowly versus just pop out. Or I would catch the parent's eye (the kids weren't taking their eyes off the coffin) and mouth the words, "Is it okay to scare them?" 

I did this with one little girl who was maybe four and the mom indicated it was fine. Still, I had told Blair as she approached that it was a little girl and to go easy and he did, not even doing a yell and instead doing a cheerful and goofy "Happy Halloween!" voice for scary guy.

Didn't matter. This kid took one look at the monster, turned, and ran screaming down our sidewalk. I'm trying to apologize to the mom and calling after the little girl, "Honey, it's a pretend monster. Come here and we'll show you. It's a nice monster," and this kid is across the street screaming and clutching her hair. She refused to go to any more houses and her parents had to put her in the car and drive away. 

I'm sorry, but that's just so awesome.

We had a lot of parents tell us that they loved our Mummy theme from last year and they came back specifically to see what we were doing this year. Once again, full credit goes to Blair. We don't get anywhere near the number of kids we used to and each year I drag my feet more about doing some big production. But it is fun when you hear groups of kids say as they're walking away, "This is the coolest house, ever." 

Until next year... HAPPY HALLOWEEN!