Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

      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 s...

Setting up my Halloween Village decorations has been a tradition of mine for as long as I can remember. Well, that's not entirely true...I vaguely remember getting Haunted House for the Atari 2600 in an Easter basket at some point, which definitely happened before the first time I set up a Halloween Village, but even that memory is pretty on-theme so whatever. Anyway, I've written many posts and posted several videos about my Villages, as the setup is different every year, with significant variance in what pieces I display (I would need an entire room fully dedicated to the Village to display everything I actually own. Hmmm...there's an idea...). Consequently, one of my annual traditions that has formed alongside this is browsing each year's new releases from Dept. 56 and Lemax. This usually occurs sometime mid-spring. If nothing else, I can't be accused of lack of preparation. Lemax and Dept. 56, for those not as deeply ensconced in the holiday village displa...

I've written in the past about my Halloween village display , an October decorative tradition stretching back so long that I vividly remember listening to Candlebox while setting it up at one point. In recent years, however, I've been facing a bit of a dilemma. Having expanded far beyond its humble Oriental Trading Co. origins, the current scope of the village in terms of sheer volume of options is quite vast, and as a result, I've had to make some difficult decisions. At first, I considered doing a significant expansion of the display, either in the form of one super-huge village or two entirely separate displays. In the end, space and time concerns (plus an injured back) led me to another approach: a single, highly focused village with a cohesive theme. Although this sadly led to the exclusion of many of the older pieces the very concept if this village was based around, I think I was able to put together one of my best displays yet! I'll let you be the judge. First, ...