A year ago I made a post explaining why I put up such a big Halloween display each year. I explained that I am not a Satanist, that it does take considerable time to put up my display each year, and that at the end of the day I put up my display because I want to create memories for the neighborhood kids. However, I find that along with other people I am asking myself the question of why I do it. Before I address that I want to talk about the number one question I have been asked this year: What does your wife think about all this?
The short answer is she loves it. The longer answer requires a little bit of back story. Anyone who knows my wife or I well knows that about 6 years ago my we had our wedding reception on Halloween (we got married in small private ceremony 3 days earlier). Nine years ago on Halloween we met each other for the 2nd time and spent the evening at a coffee house. Obviously we have a personal history with Halloween. It doesn't stop there. Last year when the entire main level of my house was covered in scene-setters wall decorations my wife helped put it up. If she didn't like Halloween it is doubtful she have spent the 30 or so hours over two weekends to help me put it it all up. Likewise, I wouldn't ask her opinion on every part of my display if she didn't like Halloween almost as much as I do. Granted, I do 90% of the work involved with setting up my display each year. So to some degree she isn't as crazy about Halloween as I am, but she is proud of how the house looks every year.
Speaking of the work involved, this is what had me questioning myself. This past weekend I started my work on creating my garage haunt. This involved making about 30 new rivet holes in tarps, and tacking down scene-setters wall roll to the tarps. Nothing to extraordinarily tiring, just repetitive fine motor actions. Yesterday, I started working on the signs that I will be putting out to advertise the garage haunt. Creating them entailed doing what would be considered minor office work, such as drawing lines to line up cropping marks, using a paper cutter to crop the pages, and then sealing the pages with contact paper and duct tape. Again, nothing too burdensome, but it does require some fine motor actions with my hands and fingers. For the average 30 year-old male this wouldn't be a problem.
Unfortunately, I have moderate arthritis in my fingers. Today my fingers are stiff, and the slightest movements are painful (this includes typing this up by the way). At its worst it feels like someone is stepping on my fingers, at the mildest it it feels like your fingers do after being outside for a few minutes in winter without wearing gloves. As a result, today and the last several Mondays have had me asking is the pain worth it. What really motivates me to put up this display knowing the level pain that is going to ensue afterward? The short answer is I don't have one. I still stand by what I said last year that I want kids to grow up realizing that there is nothing wrong with Halloween and that it should be celebrated. Additionally, I still hope that neighbors will be inspired by my display and start decorating their houses.
Even with those answers I find myself asking are those two reasons enough of a reason for me to keep doing it. For the time being it is a definitive yes. However, in the not to distant future I am going to have to start enlisting help. I foresee that within 5 years doing the amount of work that I have done in any given weekend will take at least one full day to recover from to the point that typing will be hard. When decorating starts to interfere with how you make your livelihood it is time to get help or stop. Hopefully once I am at that point the neighborhood kids will be at the point where they no longer want to observe, and instead what to start helping create the scares. Personally, I can't see discontinuing decorating for Halloween. I would rather stop decorating for Christmas and I don't see that happening either. So for the time being, Yes, Virgina, there is a Frankenstein.