Nearsighted Witches and Pumpkin Snowmen

I’ve come to the conclusion that the witch’s union has pressed for improved benefits and added coverage for eyeglasses to their health insurance. You may have noticed a couple of years ago there were tons of nearsighted witches splatted face-first into houses and telephone poles. This year, I haven’t seen one.

I’m talking, of course, about Halloween decorations. The first time I saw one of those witches, it was wrapped around a telephone pole in Burgettstown. I laughed so hard I had to pull off the road. I took friends by there to see it. I wanted to rig one of those up at my house!

But then I started seeing them EVERYWHERE. One house had three or four of them flattened against the front of it. Those poor nearsighted witches.

I didn’t want one any more. One was clever. Four thousand, nine hundred and twenty five was overkill.

That’s the problem with decorating for the holidays. Any time I see an idea that looks original and different, three days later, EVERYONE has one. Those icicle lights at Christmas are another instance. I, who never decorates the outside of my house for Christmas (except for a wreath on odd years), very nearly went out and bought a set. They were beautiful.

I’m glad I saved my money. The stores were sold out within a week. Icicle lights hung from every house in the county. Possibly the state.

I used to decorate for Halloween. A few musty bales of straw or hay that weren’t fit for the horses; some corn stalks pilfered from the neighbors field; a pumpkin (or Jack-o-Lantern, when I felt ambitious enough to carve one) from our own garden. But since we got rid of the horses, there was no more hay. The neighbors stopped planting corn. And we haven’t grown pumpkins in the last few years. So there have been no Halloween displays at my house, even the boring, traditional variety.

In truth, up until a few days ago, the weather has been so nice that I haven’t taken my summer birdhouses off the front porch yet. Guess I should get at that.

I guess the only way to come up with an original-looking Halloween decoration is to invent it myself. But I tend to burn up all my creative energy by writing. So I hope to find something I can “steal” from some other ingenious soul.

Apparently, everyone else has the same idea.

I saw something cute this year already. Someone had stacked three pumpkins (real ones, not the fake plastic ones) on top of each other and made a pumpkin version of a snowman. I like that! And so far, it’s the only one I’ve seen. Give that guy (or gal) a blue ribbon for originality.

At least until pumpkin snowmen start cropping up in every other front yard from here to Michigan.