My Halloween Village Display 2025: Enter Oktoberfest

     Well, it's the Halloween season again, and if you're one of the seventeen people reading this, then you know what that means: it's time for this year's installment of my decorative Halloween village! And whether you've been following my posts about this for years or you're a first-timer, I've got you covered with some pretty exciting spooky miniature stuff in this installment. In fact, in many ways I'd say this is my freshest display in years.

    The central theme of this year's Halloween village is one I've never explored before, and before I reveal it, I'll explain how I got there. Some years, I hit upon my theme early; for example, I happened to be listening to The Ramones last summer and had a flash of inspiration for the Pet Cemetery theme that would eventually manifest itself in my 2024 village. This year, however, I entered August still feeling uninspired and rudderless, to the point that I considered only a minimal village setup this year, or even skipping it and just putting up other Halloween decorations instead. I know, I know, but in my defense, it's a lot of work!

    Fortunately, I found my inspiration soon thereafter as I browsed this year's Dept. 56 Halloween Village releases. For the second year in a row, they're not releasing any new Dia de los Muertos pieces, so I think that product line may be dead or at the very least on hiatus.Which is fine, as I leaned pretty heavily on that theme for a few years anyway to the point that I need to take a break from it myself. However, they did introduce a few pieces that really sparked my interest: an autumn-leaves-covered football house (not strictly Halloween, but certainly seasonally appropriate) and, amazingly, an Oktoberfest set. Now, every year I go to Oktoberfest in downtown Campbell, California, and you better believe I pass a few football houses on the way. The seed of an idea had been planted.

      These thoughts on annual October traditions then led me to an idea for a second theme. Long ago, Cupertino, California had its own annual haunted attraction in the form of the Ghost Walk. This event took place every October at Blackberry Farm, and was basically a family-friendly outdoor version of those staged haunted houses you walk through, with various ghosts and monsters and other assorted creeps growling and lunging at you from amidst cornstalks and hay bales. I was always a fun time, and congregating outside the barn post-Walk, nervously giggling with some hot apple cider among the glowing jack-o'-lanterns, was simply peak Halloween. Though the Ghost Walk is now itself long departed, existing only as a phantom in the minds of those who experienced it, I decided to dedicate a portion of this year's village to a haunted farm/pumpkin patch in its honor. As luck would have it, Lemax released a large piece this year that would perfectly fit as the centerpiece for this theme. 

     Thus, I had a plan. Here's how it all turned out.

     Here's the Oktoberfest setup that inspired the whole thing. Here we have your big ol' beer tent and the drunken festivities surrounding it, including a witch who frankly seems to be overserved. I should note that the pumpkin water tower is evocative of Campbell's own iconic water tower, which sadly to my knowledge has never been painted as a grinning jack-o'-lantern. Maybe I can bring that up at the next Chamber of Commerce meeting.

     Classic Oktoberfest entertainment: a rousing game of Hammerschlagen as a couple of drunken ghouls spectate.

     Here you can see the football house being approached by a trio of trick-or-treaters (these resin bears are among the first Halloween decorations I ever got, and are still a favorite of mine). We've got a lot of Halloween packed into this photo: costumes, black cats, pumpkins, a scarecrow, a skeleton...if you need to explain Halloween to a space alien, just show them this image.

     The entrance to the haunted farm area. A dapper skeleton welcomes you to the pumpkin patch he presumably owns. Behind him, we've got popcorn and balloons. Those of us in the business call those "value adds."

     A wider view of the entrance to the farm. In the background you can see the Lemax piece I referred to earlier, The A-Maze-Ing Pumpkin Patch. It's a haunted corn maze with scarecrows springing out from hiding to scare the bejeesus out of unsuspecting tykes and their parents alike. It couldn't be more evocative of the Ghost Walk if it were Blackberry Farm itself in miniature.

     The pumpkin patch itself. Those "trick or treat" ghosts in the front are about as old as the costumed bears, and I utilize them nearly as often. The witch girl giving them the side eye seems only appropriate though.

     This year's village is a bit less wide-ranging than some of my others, admittedly. Especially compared to something like my Past, Present and Boo-ture display, this one is less sprawling, but I think it's no less ambitious. In fact, it feels like it's more personal than many of my efforts, as I've attempted to pay homage to the real-life festivities that have filled Octobers throughout my life. I suppose it's a celebration of Halloween in the suburbs. In any case, I certainly had a lot of fun putting it all together! However, I dealt with one unexpected difficulty along the way...

     This crazed beast has decided that the tablecloth upon which my village sits is her personal plaything, and thus she has been the cause of several seismic events around town. Unfortunate to be sure, but then again, this is California we're talking about. An earthquake in October just gives me 1989 vibes.

     If you're thirsting for more Halloween village content, please enjoy this video in which I act as a human drone, flying in for those otherwise impossible shots:

     Thank you as always for accompanying me on this journey into my esoteric holiday decorating habits, and have a wonderful Halloween season! It's on a Friday this year, so for once you can go all out the night of and not have to worry about work in the morning. Unless you work retail, in which case, I wish you luck setting up all the Christmas stuff on November 1st. Just kidding! I know that stuff is already out.

Joey Marsilio would like to circumvent those stupid AI search engine summaries by directly sharing with you links to other Halloweeny content, since as his articles on scary stories and pumpkin carving.