Getting into the spirit
Christmastime decorator adds Halloween to the mix
By Jim Hendricks
ALBANY — Odessa Trent has enjoyed decorating outside her Juniper Drive home at Christmastime for many years, but this October she also got into the spirit of Halloween in a big way.
“Everybody who comes down this street just stops and says, “What made you do this?’” Trent said as she looked over her haunting front yard at 2018 Juniper Drive in Albany. “I didn’t have any idea about all this. I just kept adding things.
“I’ve gotten so many compliments.”
She said this is the first year she’s put up an outdoor display for Halloween, which started with a couple of spooky skeletal swags on her mailbox out front. Then she spotted an animated talking witch and it mushroomed from there.
“I saw that witch over there,” she said, pointing to the life-sized figure on her front lawn, “and I bought it and put it in the carport. Then I just had a brainstorm on colors and stuff.”
The witch was joined by three ghosts hanging from a small tree, a bigger (often vocal) ghost guarding the front door with support from four smaller ghosts, purple and orange flowers in planters in the yard, spider webs, a couple of scarecrows and her latest addition — a two-grave cemetery with tombstones that sport glowing eyes.
Sometimes, she said, it even scares her.
“One day I was out here and I forgot I had left her (the witch) turned on, and I had my back to her and she started saying stuff,” Trent said, laughing. “I almost started running. I didn’t know who it was that had gotten by me like that.”
While the ghoulish scenery’s been a hit with the neighborhood, it’ll be short-lived. Trent said she’ll take it down soon after Halloween and start working on her Christmas ensemble.
“I always like to decorate at Christmas,” she said. “I’m going to try to do it a little different this time.”
Still, she said she expects the collection of witches, skeletons, ghost and ghouls to rise from the dead again next fall. And they may bring some new friends with them.
“I think I’m going to do this as long as I have the strength to do it every Halloween,” she said.
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