There was a time when I took a Clark Griswold-style approach to Halloween decorating. I made certain it wasn't possible to stand anywhere in the house facing any direction without seeing something orange or dead. Eventually, things like parenthood and an unpredictable freelance life changed all of that, and truth be told, I didn't really miss it at the time.
Through the years I reintroduced some seasonal spooky touches to the household, and only a few caused my son to run from the room in horrified tears. A handful of decorating traditions have fallen into place now, including an October first decking of the halls. So on Wednesday I replaced the lunchboxes on my kitchen shelves with plastic Jack-O-lanterns, and set up the haunted house centerpiece on the table. Wait a minute, photos would make this so much better. So here you go, I put the ghost and his sister in the front porch window...
And re-hung the first Halloween decorations that I ever owned...
And found a place for the classic jointed skeleton... 
On any other year I would be about done by that point. But this year I tried something else for the first time— a Halloween mood table. The concept started on a web site called X-Entertainment (Now it's DinosaurDracula.com). The first HMT (as I call them) was conceived in 2007 when Matt, who runs the site, haphazardly threw some scary stuff together in a desperate attempt to reclaim the Halloween spirit during a year when life "threw [him] a few curve balls." It became an annual practice, (this year's can be seen here.) and in the process the concept caught on, inspiring dozens, if not hundreds of others to create their own. Now you can count me among those inspired, behold my 2014 Halloween Mood Table!...
Included in Matt's tips is the admonishment not to over think things. I found this incredibly freeing, especially in contrast to a Christmas tree where I struggle to achieve equal ornament distribution, or I have to pull the whole thing apart because I've clustered too many lights in one spot. I did spend quite a while digging up the elements for the table, but when it came to assembly it went together pretty quickly.
The excavation process was actually a lot of fun, again in contrast to facing the sea of Christmas boxes and the broken, lost, and burnt-out disappointments within. My goal was to use stuff from storage, and objects that have been been banished to the back of my toy shelves so that my structure would seem almost new.
Here are some close-up shots. In keeping with the casual, carefree nature of the Mood Table, I'm going to resist the urge to caption them.
You say you want to see it once again from a slight diagonal angle? But that's hardly different from the photos I've already shown you! Oh, well, you're the boss...
Now that it's in place, it really has given the season a jolt. It felt great to get excessive once again. It's the embodiment of Halloween taking up physical space in my house, and it can't be ignored. Best of all, it absolutely does alter the mood. Like most any time, these weeks are not free of troubles, far from it. But I found value in making the time to do something celebratory. The act of putting it up was an unexpectedly festive event. It was an evening of spooky records, digging through boxes, and trips to the garage. As my son looked on he said more than once, "It's just so beautiful."
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