My Halloween Village 2022: Ghosts of Halloween Past, Present and Boo-ture

 

 

 Well, looking at my cute kitty calendar, it's about that time...

 

That's right, it's October again, which means it's time to bust out my Halloween Village for another season of miniature monster madness. I have of course written about it in previous years, but for this year I wanted to do something a little different. For last year's theme, I largely excluded the older elements of my village in favor of showcasing my newer pieces. This year, though, I decided to make it a point to go back to the very origins of my festive decor fixation and include the original buildings and characters that I got from Oriental Trading Company...three decades ago? That can't be right, can it? I'd better confirm with the kitty calendar.

Oh. Damn.

Well, since I started doing this what amounts to a generation ago, I suppose it's only appropriate that I chose to combine what you might consider the first generation of my village with the latest one. As such, I endeavored to break this year's village into three districts, each representing a certain theme. Let's start with the first district: the Past, the classic, the OG Scare Acres.

This district combines the slender, resin buildings and characters and from the first Oriental Trading Company village series with the bulkier lighted houses and more cartoony residents of OTC's second village offering.

This section of the display really captures the look and of what this used to look like in the 90s, the absence of random incongruous Jurassic Park action figures notwithstanding.

By the way, if anyone happens to have one of those ancient Oriental Trading Company catalogues, let me know. I'd love to have more info and images directly from the source about these sets, but it's hard to find these days.

I did splash a couple of newer figurines in here and there, but I think they fit in pretty smoothly.

Now we begin to shift into the second district, inspired by our cat Amelia (who was very interested in the process of my setting this village up).

That's right, it's the pet district! You see, that kitty calendar at the beginning was a sly tease. I'm dropping breadcrumbs here.


I'd like to note at this point that one disadvantage of having such a densely packed village is the extreme difficulty of taking the photos you envision without, like, a tree branch getting in the way or a skeleton toppling over. I suppose I could have deconstructed areas for photo purposes and then put everything back, but this thing already took an ungodly amount of time to set up as-is.

People were really trying to charge some outrageous prices online for this Meow Mansion, but fortunately I was able to eventually locate one for MSRP. I mean, it wouldn't have been much of a pet district with only one major pet-themed building.


 The crazy dead cat lady is right at home in the pet district.

The pet district is kind of like Adventureland in Disneyland: it's a small area, but it really holds everything together. The third district, if you recall my setup last year, should come as no surprise.

That's right, it's the District of the Day of the Dead!

The DotDotD is livelier than ever this year, including face painting and a Pan de los Muertos vendor. She knows a branding opportunity when she sees one!

Of course, the old favorites like the Halloween House and the church are back, rearranged but still dazzling.

It's a dead man's party! Who could ask for more?

One of the things is really like about this layout is, despite three distinct themes, there are areas of overlap that produce some fun visuals.

Bits and pieces spanning two centuries (heck, two millennia, technically) come together in Halloween harmony.

Overall, I'm very happy with how everything turned out this year. The old school decorations proved that, even among fancy expensive newfangled elements, they still have much spooky charm to offer. Who knows what ghoulish delights next year's display may bring? But for now, let us sip upon finest spiced cider and luxuriate in this boo-tiful scream-ery. To wit, a video:

Thank you for joining me for another glimpse at one of my dumb, nerdy little hobbies. It's important to embrace and celebrate the things that bring you joy, even if they are just ceramic witches or whatever. Happy Halloween!

Joey Marsilio may not have created Supervillage 2022 this year, but he has (still) also written a variety of articles related to Halloween, including some about scary stories and pumpkin carving.

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