Scott Thompson: On decoration-heavy Halloween, is the green garbage the costume of the year?

Having two kids, Halloween has always been a big night at our house.

Even before they arrived, we were “that house” on the block that threw expensive electricity to the wind and every year added to the front graveyard display.

Not to give anything away, but this year, a hanging, gooey hand from the maple tree is the big feature.

As kids walk up the front step, my son will slowly lower it — via a string — onto unsuspecting heads walking under it.

You can see the mayhem, can’t you? He can hardly contain himself just thinking about it.

Being 12, he is planning for when he can no longer trick-or-treat and will stay at home instead, scaring the bejeebers out of little kids.

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He was no doubt inspired by his older sister, who, on her first non-trick-or-treating year, built a horrific operating room in the garage, complete with squirting blood.

We had to escort kids up the driveway because they were too paralyzed by fear to move any farther.

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Eventually, we just took the basket of candy to the curb and handed it out.

After 20 years of Halloween at the house — some without kids, most with — it has become a weekend of assembling and another of tearing down.

Experience and careful planning, however, have taught me that replacing the purple and orange lights with red and green gives you a head start on the Christmas holidays, only a few short weeks away.

This year’s edition looks like it’s bringing plenty of rain, and maybe even wet snow into Friday.

It’s nothing we Canadians can’t handle, who have trick-or-treated while sporting everything from shorts to snowsuits.

Forget skeletons, scary clowns, or the movie characters of the day. The costume of the year for Halloween 2019 might be best remembered as the traditional green garbage bag — extra large!

Boo!

Scott Thompson is the host of The Scott Thompson Show on Global News Radio 900 CHML.​​​​