Friday, October 27, 2006

Bucket Interuptus

We're taking a quick break from the pumpkin buckets today so that we can focus our attentions on their kissin' cousins- the light-up plastic pumpkin Hallowe'en decoration. You've all seen them before, you all probably have at least one in your own assortment of Hallowe'en decorations and if so... I want it. E-mail me for my mailing address. No seriously- gimme!

By the way, I don't give the light-up pumpkins names. That would just be mental.


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One of my favorites. The witches around the base are cool and the skull laying at the cat's feet makes for a sinister little touch. Light-up pumpkins are usually meant to be fun and goofy, so sinister is always a nice little bonus!



Top o' the mornin' to you Mr. Lantern!





Pumpkin in witch hat #1-


-and pumpkin in witch hat #2. Also on cool base featuring bats and cats. My favorite of the two witch hat wearing pumpkins. Shhh! Don't tell #1!






CHILD EATIN' TEETH I'M TELLING YOU!!!!













Jack-o'-lantern headed scarecrow is cute but he's one scrawny little dude with absolutely no weight to his bottom parts so that he topples over violently every time you walk past him which is annoying when it happens to you but hilarious when it happens to other people. I can't tell you how many people I've seen shriek like a little girl when a small glowing orange pumpkin creature lunges at them from out of the darkness. It's just almost exactly like that last segment of "Trilogy of Terror."






This last pumpkin is probably the fellow who started it all. I've mentioned before that I never used pumpkin buckets for trick-or-treating when I was a kid so my nostalgic love of all things orange and plastic is probably entirely the fault of this guy. He was one of the very first Hallowe'en decorations that my parents purchased after they were married and was the centerpiece decoration of all my childhood Hallowe'ens. Hallowe'en decorating around our house was as big a deal as Christmas decorating and like the star at the top of the tree this fellow wasn't plugged in until all of the rest of the decorations were up and the absolutely most perfect spot was found for him. Some of my fondest memories of the holiday are of lying on the living room floor, watching Hallowe'en specials or reading scary stories with no other light on in the room except for this pumpkin. When it came time for me to move out on my own, the first thing I did before leaving was to go into my parent's storage room and dig him out of all the boxes full of decorations and insist that he was coming with me. After some negotiating, my parents finally agreed to let him go. I think their exact words were "Whatever gets you out of the house."

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Interesting fun fact post script- the Blogger spell check function does not want to recognize the words kissin', mornin', or eatin' which is just blatant discrimination against American Southerners, the Irish and all other people who are just too busy to go around finishing every word that comes out of their mouths!

3 comments:

John Rozum said...

Great stuff. We had the one on top of the cat as well, and I plan on liberating that from my parents on my next visit.

Do you still light them all up every year?

Steven Altis said...

I took these pictures right after I pulled all of the Halloween decorations out of the closet this year so, as usual, half the bulbs were burnt out which is why they aren't lit in the pictures, but I do plug them in every year. I fill the front entrance hall with them so that they greet everyone who comes into the house and can be seen from the road at night!

Todd Franklin said...

Great post! Orange plastic does put out a nice perfect glow.