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Grim reaper skeletons festoon the front lawn at Jerry and Dee Dee Ringe's fright-filled Birmingham bungalow.Boo decor
Haunting house decorations dot the landscape this Halloween
Dee Dee Ringe, wearing a Frankenstein shirt, sits in her 'graveyard' with granddaughter Madison Giffin, 2. Ringe and her husband, Jerry, create bigger displays every year.
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'Tis the season to scare, and Mark A. Provo, an insurance agent from Macomb Township, is so ready.
"Every year, my wife Tara and I have a big Halloween party with more than 100 gruesome guests," Provo says. "We decorate most of our house inside and out with dozens of electronic and air-driven creatures -- it's a lot of work but a lot of fun, too -- more fun, actually, than Christmas when you feel obligated to buy gifts for everyone." (The couple's children are Kayla, 13, and Jessica, 9.)
Halloween has become one of the biggest decorating holidays of the year, second only to Christmas, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF). It's also big business. The NRF 2005 Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, found that consumers are expected to spend $3.29 billon on Halloween this year, up 5.4 percent from $3.12 in 2004. That's a whole lot of pumpkins and pointy hats, boys and girls.
We asked Homestyle readers to tell us how they put the creepiness into your Halloween decorations, and were delighted -- and sometimes terrified -- by your creativity.
Dee Dee Ringe of Birmingham, for example, enjoys "torturing" her latest granddaughter, 2-month-old Mackenzie, by posing her with a life-size Count Dracula. Mackenzie's mom, Danielle Giffin, thinks it's a hoot. Ringe, 57, does the same thing with her Persian cat, T-Bone.
"I have a giant spider with her new babies crawling up the side of our house and skeletons in our gazebo," Ringe says. "We also have a talking ghost, talking pumpkin and flying witches on the garage door."
Larry and Janet Graf live in Dearborn's Ford Homes District. Every year, the community has a pumpkin display contest. Larry won last year with this Smashing Pumpkins band.Ringe and her husband, Jerry, 62, a human relations manager, create bigger and bigger displays every year.
"Our neighbors love it," she says. "People stop and stare."
St. Clair Shores residents Gary Loomis, a sheet metal worker, and his wife, Ann, owner of a dog grooming business called Gucci Poochie, have a haunted yard at their ranch house.
"We've been decorating our house for many years," says Gary Loomis, who's been married to Ann for 14 years. "Almost every homeowner on our block decorates and passes out treats. You could say we all get into the 'spirit' of things. We're affectionately known as the Halloween House."
Although the Loomises don't have any children, they indulge their inner-child with handmade animated displays, including 30 ghosts and ghouls "moving and moaning" in unison. Other items that go bump in the night include a 5-foot rat and a dragon.
Every year, members of the Ford Homes District in Dearborn host a pumpkin display contest. For the past three years, Larry Graf, a computer consultant, has won first place. Last year, his theme was the rock band the Smashing Pumpkins. The musicians were skeletons, and the entire drum set was made of pumpkins. Of course, the disturbing display was illuminated at night.
"Larry's displays are fantastic, extremely creative, and they appeal to everyone," says his wife, Janet Graf.
Spike, a smoke-breathing dragon, emerges from a haunted doghouse at the Loomis home.Some people collect Hummel or Lladro figurines, but Judy Yaquinto collects witches. She displays them throughout her Dearborn Heights home. She also decorates an indoor Halloween tree similar to a Christmas tree with pumpkin lights and orange ornaments. The tree-topper is a witch's hat. She even painted a ladder-back wooden chair a bright orange and black and festooned it with painted pumpkins, candy corn and spiders.
Jennifer Litomisky of Pleasant Ridge is a veteran at Halloween decor. Her fright-filled yard is lit from 6 to 10 p.m. nightly, from the last weekend in September to the final day of October.
"That's five spootacular weeks of fright," says Litomisky, a kid at heart and the executive director of Ronald McDonald House Detroit.
This year, there are more than 40 ghouls hanging from the trees, a zombie emerging from the ground, a homemade corpse with an eyeball hanging out of its socket and a witch perched high above the porch in front of a 5-foot moon.
"The majority of the decorations are handmade," Litomisky says. "Zombies and ghouls were developed from a corpsification kit in my art studio."
Corpsification kits typically consist of a gallon of Corpsa-tex (low ammonia flesh-colored latex); Corpsa-batting; black crepe hair; a brush and vinyl gloves, plus detailed instructions on creating a rotted corpse. Find them at www.gore-galore.com.
"People actually knock on the door to talk to us about the display," Litomisky adds, "and children visit our Halloween Town over and over again."
Now that's what we call a gory, good time.
A hapless victim fries in an electric chair at Mark and Tara Provo's Macomb Township home.
The Ringes' ghoulish sign post points the way to scary destinations.Scary highlights
Picket fences made of cats, bats and pumpkins are popular this Halloween, along with inflatable pumpkins, witches and ghosts. Here's a look at Halloween by the numbers:
• 52.5 percent of consumers plan to celebrate Halloween this year.
• The average consumer will spend $48.48 on merchandise, up from $43.57 last year.
• The average person plans to spend $18.07 on sweets, and 94.6 percent of consumers plan to purchase candy.
• Costumes are the second largest spending category behind candy. Consumers will spend approximately $1.15 billion on costumes, with 53.3 percent of consumers planning to buy a Halloween costume. The average consumer will spend $31.88 on Halloween costume purchases.
• 3.78 million youngsters plan to dress up as a princess, making it the most popular Halloween costume for kids this year.
- National Retail Federation
You can reach Marge Colborn at (313) 222-2756 or mcolborn@det news.com.
A giant, hungry rat, which moves back and forth, is a frightful sight at the St. Clair Shores home of Gary and Ann Loomis.
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The Detroit News.
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