Belleville getting into the Halloween spirit early

By Evan Doherty

BELLEVILLE – Halloween is nearly three weeks away, but the people around the neighbourhoods of Belleville are excited to get into the spirit by decorating their houses before it even begins!

Bright crisp red, yellow and orange leaves are falling off the trees. Winds howl and a full moon sits in the sky among shining stars. Orange and black decorations are sprawled across lawns. After dark, jack-o’-lanterns light up the streets and decorations of ghosts and creepy dolls hang from the trees. There is already excitement around Halloween all through town.

Across the Belleville, there’s everything from a make-shift graveyard and witch covens to skeletons riding on bicycles. There’s so much to see. Marla Webb says she and her family are already preparing for Halloween night.

“We started (decorating) the third week of September. We were putting up our Halloween decorations on the twenty-first of September,” Webb says.

“We have an eight-year-old boy and he loves Halloween. Like over Christmas and everything, his favourite holiday is Halloween. We love Halloween at our house.  My husband and I dress up and we go trick-or-treating with our son,”  she says.

Around the east end of Belleville, there’s usually plenty of houses decorated for Halloween according to Webb. However, she says that not everyone is decorating as early as her family.

“We’re really perplexed by it because we drive around constantly because our son’s so obsessed (with Halloween) and the houses aren’t all decorated yet,” she says.

When asked why she loves Halloween so much, she said her whole family loves Halloween and has been decorating since she moved to her house five years ago. Webb began decorating her house fairly recently. However, long-time Belleville resident Susan Lucas says she’s been decorating her house with her husband since 1978.

In fact, Lucas says her and her husband’s displays were so elaborate that when they lived in their old house that the local paper wrote an article about them.

“I’ve loved Halloween ever since I was a kid. We like to dress up and everything still,” she says.

Lucas says now they like to cater to their decorating to younger kids. She says they don’t make their displays as scary as they used to.

“We have spooky music and we do a lot of things for the kids too. We have a popcorn machine, chocolate bars, gold coins, and potato chips,” Lucas says.

Lucas says she isn’t even finished decorating her house yet. She says this year she’s bringing out one of her biggest display pieces that’s she’s ever had.

“We just got a new guy that’s pretty scary. He’s six feet tall and purple with big feet. He’s holding a sign that says free hugs on it. So we’ll see what happens with that,” she says.