Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
FRIGHT NIGHT
Uwchlan woman collects Halloween decorations to expand her yearly display
Carol Comeau uses her imagination to decorate her front yard with age appropriate Halloween decorations for visitors to enjoy.
She said she likes to rearrange the decorations yearly to keep the yard in the first block of Karrens Way entertaining for visitors. This year she has a skeleton bride and groom together with the groom giving his bride a heart. Last year they were in a tombstone, where the groom gave his bride a rubber rat.
She said some portions of the yard have “little hidden meanings” but other portions of the yard have humor. There is a black cat looking at a witch who is buried under rocks. But the cat doesn’t notice the mummy staring at it from behind. She said some spectators will laugh at displays like that.
“There’s lit t le sneaky things,” Comeau said.
Comeau even jumped one day when she walked past a skeleton on a sensor, which sat up from its tombstone and it screamed.
“It got me,” Comeau said, who laughed. “I forgot it was on.”
The decorations vary with some that have blinking lights or talk. She leaves the push buttons on the decorations for children to press as they walk through the display. She said she considers the ages of the
children and will turn off the sensors and decorations for the younger children to enjoy.
Comeau, 65, has been collecting all kinds of Halloween decorations for years. She said she shops online and finds decorations at discounted prices. She also shops at yard sales. She has saved items from becoming discarded trash by finding a way to incorporate the items into the display. She pointed out a snake crawling out of a basket, which is actually an upside down lamp shade that is torn.
The main decorations include are tombstones, rubber rats and snakes, bats, bones, zombies, ghosts, skeletons, spiders, cobwebs, and more. Some decorations, like the ghosts hang from the trees and enor- mous spiders are climbing the fence at the backyard.
Comeau said she doesn’t have a favorite type of decoration.
“She makes the yard creepy, even scary in the right light, but does not believe in blood or gore,” Deb Comeau said, Carol Comeau’s daughter. “I don’t have my own kids, but as a teacher I appreciate that the yard is child friendly.”
It takes several weeks to decorate the yard. Carol Comeau typically decorates the yard by herself. This year she said neighborhood children and her three children helped her to decorate the yard. People offered to help her when she said she did not think she could decorate the yard this year. Children placed fake snakes, worms and bugs at the tombstones and on the rock paths.
In the past few years she has brainstormed and decorated the yard with the dis- play growing over the years. She sets up the display as she goes. This year she told her helpers to “do whatever you want.” She said some visitors talk about what decorations they like, some even make suggestions that she considers for the following year.
“I don’t think my Mom knows what a positive impact her yard has on others,” Deb Comeau said, “even though she proudly talks about all the cars that drive by and kids that visit.”
Every year she changes the landscaping of the yard. She creates a well-lit path for the children to walk on which leads them through the tombstones as they trick or treat at her house. On Halloween, she said she hands out age appropriate toys, pencils, stickers and other gifts.