The Day After...

It feels weird sitting here on October 28th, penning a quick recap of the previous night's trick-or-treat display.

For the first time in over 16 years, we aren't celebrating on Halloween night (as I firmly believe we should be), due to our new neighborhood's schedule: Sunday night, from 5-7 pm. It really doesn't make much sense to me, but I'm not here to complain about it.

After finding out when our trick-or-treat actually was (there were conflicting reports of Saturday or Sunday), I got to scheduling everything in order to be ready for the big night. Being that it would be our first Halloween in the new neighborhood, I wanted to make sure we made a BIG first impression.

By Saturday night, I had everything (albeit in a scaled-back version from last year) staged and ready to go. The only thing posing an issue was the torrential downpouring of rain accompanied by gusting winds.

As I woke up on Sunday morning, I quickly checked the weather forecast. The rain would stop by 9, and the winds would die down by 10. Perfect. Except that didn't happen...

We started setting up at 11, only to be hampered by gusting winds throughout the day. Tombstones were swaying and blowing around and my stomach was in knots. Not to mention the nagging fear that we'd go through the trouble of setting this all up and we'd get no trick-or-treaters. The stress was weighing heavy on me.

As we got closer to show time, the winds finally began to slow down, allowing us to quickly put the full cemetery together. As I stepped back, I took a second to take it all in. It actually looked pretty damn good! The knot in my stomach began to release, but I realized that I still needed to put my costume on with mere minutes to go.

As the clock struck 5, we took our places within the cemetery. And slowly trick-or-treaters showed up. Not as many as I was secretly hoping for, but they still came.

As we really got into our groove, a strange thing happened. The wind died down completely. And the sun broke through the clouds. It's as if the Pumpkin Gods were rewarding us!

And then I noticed my fog machine and chiller setup. PERFECT, lingering plumes of thick, chilled white fog rolled across the entire cemetery, creeping around my tombstones and stretching out into the street, creating the greatest fog display I have ever been able to achieve. It was AMAZING!

Mrs. Highbury snapped this photo as the sun began to set...

Perfection!! I was giddy with what was happening.

Trick-or-treaters, their parents, and neighbors began to file down the street, checking out this new display in their neighborhood. We ended up getting a nice turnout and I was pretty happy with this year's setup. 

As trick-or-treat wound down, it finally got dark enough out to get photos of the display bathed in its truly spooky lighting. I got a collection of great photos that I'll be posting up with a full review after Halloween.

Overall, our first Halloween was a huge success. The nervous planning and stressful setup gave way to a great weather, an ever greater display and a ton of fun with friends, family and new neighbors. We were the talk of my son's school bus this morning, and Highbury Cemetery has planted the first seed in becoming the new neighborhood "Halloween House."