Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

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,

              It started in the early 90s, I think. While flipping through the monthly edition of the Oriental Trading Company catalog, I had spotted something I just needed to possess. You see, one of the great virtues of the Oriental Trading Company, besides sounding like an organization that would possess a fleet of merchant ships to be plundered by Jack Sparrow and his ilk, was their yearly cornucopia of Halloween merchandise. Every year in the late summer, OTC's usual inventory of cheap party favors and candy sold by the gross was joined by a plethora of goodies featuring ghosts and goblins, often in the form of cheap party favors and candy. On this particular year, though, one of their seasonal offerings stood skull and shoulder bones over the rest: a haunted village. Consisting of resin statuettes of various structures and characters, the components shared a unique and interesting tall, thin visual style, from the haunted house with a many-windowed pumpkin for a top floo