Friday, October 28, 2016

Skulls and skeletons

There are bones, lots of bones in the Halloween decorations in Vancouver yards this year. I have seen skeletons sitting on house tops, climbing up the side of houses, skulls decorating the tops of houses, and skeletons in pieces poking out of flower beds, lying on lawns and clambering out of coffins. I don't know where the skeletons come from -- I suppose a discount store somewhere has racks of them -- but I've never seen such a lavish display of bones before. Here are a few I've encountered in the last few days:

A red tree, a red shawl, a red hat, and beneath it all, a skeleton. A colourful surprise just up the street from me. 

On the same property, two skeletons on the roof. One  is supposed to be a male figure, with a hat and a guitar. The other is likely supposed to be his female listener, with her red scarf. Maybe just two old rock 'n' rollers still having fun!


This house at 26th and Ontario has everything -- spiders, zombies, a coffin with a skeleton trying to climb out, tombstones, warning signs, and bats flying on invisible wires. As I watched, smoke puffed out from somewhere on the deck to add to the ghostly atmosphere. This house is across from a school so I assume the homeowner's efforts are well appreciated. 

There is no shortage of skulls to decorate the fence of the Ontario street house.

This imaginative use of skeletons, who are climbing up the side of the house,  caught my eye. Beneath them is a coffin with yet another skeleton struggling to get out.


Another view of that same house, showing more of the ghoulish figures. The black object is the coffin with the extra skeleton.

At the gate, beside an archway of spiders, yet another skeleton  upside down and wrapped like a mummy. Along the sidewalk is a row of little animal skeletons. Let them be fake. Let them not be cats or dogs!

And yes, it's all in a good cause. Donations to BC Children's Hospital accepted in return for the hours of work and all the supplies that somebody put into this. 


1 comment:

  1. My goodness...those are a lot of bones! I do like the idea of the donation box. I remember bringing Unicef tins around but people usually insisted we get a treat as well. Halloween was so exciting for us when we were kids....the treats, the fire crackers....fireworks were too expensive for our neighbourhood. And then the special treat of the night when my Dad put up two railway flares (he worked as a brakeman on the train so had access) on our fence. And to make ourselves sick on all our candy. Now parents go through it all and dole it out. Well, I don't think it's as big a treat now as it was for us in those days. And I think more kids than you think are actually uncomfortable with these decorations. Our apartment manager at The Flamingo mentioned his kids weren't comfortable with it all.

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