Oct. 19, 2012 — What started out as a few pumpkins, some flowers, hay bales and a foddershock on Copperas Hollow Road has turned into two separate yard displays: one stands for a happy Halloween and the other represents a spooky graveyard.
The Littles don’t get trick-or-treaters, but they do get plenty of spectators. Jack and Patty often wave from their yard as people stop to look.
“The neighbors seem to enjoy it,” Patty said. “They’ll stop and tell us how they like it and appreciate it, and then we’ve had some stop and take pictures with their kids.”
The colors most used are orange for the happy side and black for the spooky one.
“This year we were working on redoing the siding from one of our storage buildings so we saved the wood from it and made tombstones,” Patty said.
Her family now has a special tradition that includes Jack, their daughter, Tina McWain and her two children, Justin and Rayanna.
“It allows us to spend quality family time,” Tina said.
Since the family became involved, Tina has noticed artistic talents she didn’t know she had.
“I was picking out clothes one day for characters and I thought of an old lady,” Tina said. “I found a picture of an old lady in a magazine or on the internet and I thought, ‘OK, I can do this out of modeling clay.’ I’ve had no training, no nothing.”
She added clay to a Styrofoam head that she bought from a beauty supply store and experimented from there. The “old lady” is her daughter’s favorite character in the collection.
Most of the characters’ heads are milk jugs. Masks fit the jugs like a human head, and that’s what makes them look so real, Patty said.
At night, the masks are lit by tiny lights that fit into the jugs. Spooky music plays from the graveyard.
“We have the Tiki torches lit at night,” Patty said. “That adds to the ambiance of the scary scene.”
She says at the end of the season, she’ll buy more Halloween stuff on clearance so that next year’s display will be even bigger.
Nicole Sturgill can be reached at nsturgill@themoreheadnews.com or by telephone at 784-4116.
