Most people might carve a pumpkin or hang a skeleton on the door for the kids coming around trick-or-treating. But when it comes to decorating for Halloween, Glendon’s Sheryl Ingram is not like most people.
Walking to Ingram’s door is an exercise in bravery, past hands reaching out of the ground, past rabbit hutches converted into zombie cages, past a window with a digital display of a ghostly figure walking by – and perhaps most unsettling of all, past a group of hand-painted scary clowns sitting on the front doorstep, that ask of passers-by in an evil voice – “Did I scare you?” Yes, yes in fact you did.
“I have just always loved Halloween,” she says, explaining why she hunts for Halloween supplies year-round, and spends a month decorating her house and yard in the lead-up to the ghoulish day. She explains her mother is also “really into Halloween,” and sets up a big yard display every year as well.
Following in her mother’s footsteps, Ingram started decorating her own home about six years ago, starting with a couple of people made of PVC pipe and stuffed with straws, topped by hand-painted, ghoulish Styrofoam heads.
“Every year, I just kept adding and adding,” she said, of the display that has grown to include a witch with a cauldron that bubbles up blood through a pump, monsters, and new this year, a haunted house with a butcher, a crazy person in a cage, and a tub full of body parts.
When asked how much she normally spends on Halloween decorations, Ingram says, “I really don’t want to say,” chuckling afterwards as she explains she wouldn’t want her husband to know.
Her youngest one-year-old baby doesn’t blink twice but growls at each of the scary figures as if to ward them off, while her other three kids have helped out in the past putting together the display.
Ingram explains she loves seeing the kids in the village come out to see her work – seeing their costumes and hearing their excitement keeps fueling her passion to grow the display every year.
“I hear a lot of kids say my house is the best house ever,” she says with a note of pride. For those who appreciate a good scare, you could say that again.
