Halloween around town ~ Nighttime 2026

OK, time to share the night view of the photos you saw in the last blog post, as well as a few new ones! I am so happy with how this one turned out.

Every time I see one of these giant skeleton busts, it looks different. So much depends on the lighting.

How cheerful is this? It was my computer wallpaper for a while.

One of those infinity pumpkins. I'm pretty sure I took a picture of this at Stein's.

Lollipop light pole:

 

I'd wondered what this was going to become when I saw it in the daylight. He's sort of a fountain.

 

The sayings on these stones were hilarious. I only know that from being there in the daytime. But I did manage to get a clear shot of one stone.

I've been passing this swinging figure during the day and thinking about what it would look like at night. It's pretty eerie and I imagine it would be even more eerie if it moved with the wind.

This house had a large spooky skeleton section and a friendly scarecrow section.

 

 

 

I got your back!

 

 

 

This is the moon that was out that night.

 

Not that you could tell here, but there's a path into the woods in all that darkness. Those trees are in someone's back yard.

 

That inflatable dragon's head moves side to side and those green rope lights on his wings blink on and off.

 

This looks like a sheet and a mask over a hanging light.

I don't even remember what was happening under this jack-o-lantern! I'm sure he had a body. I just like it as a hovering head.

How fun is this lit-up fence? I don't know why I thought this was a train from a distance.

I was going to mention the daytime shots of this, but they're not even comparable. The red light adds so much.

 

This is genuinely creepy in person too. 

On to one of the yards in this blog post! You know the one. This ghost actually spooks me when it moves around. It's so beautiful in all those different colors of light.

A few shots of the phantom floating over his graveyard:

The tombstone of A. Nita Koffen:

Remember this guy? He wasn't flipping the bird anymore, so I guess the homeowner fixed him. He looks a lot creepier at night, doesn't he?

Somewhere in the dark is that crow holding the eyeball.

This gargoyle looks amazing lit up! Again, I've seen some of the props in this yard in other yards but they're never lit as well.

Remember how I said that the house with the spider attacks had great lighting? I think their unfortunate skeletons look so much better at night. And how about those ghost dolls underneath!

This is that Better Homes & Gardens display. Not surprisingly, it's perfectly lit.

This was the first time I walked this tree-lined path at night. It's a spooky shot, but a suuuuper short path. I was probably through it in like 30 seconds. 

On to the second yard you're going to remember... This lady went all out with her witches this year.

This witch felt new to me. I'll have to check back with my old photos. But I think I would have remembered her peering down from the tree.

 

The cauldron:

 

This shed is pretty creepy at night. She really improved the lighting this year. I heard some people saying that as they walked past too.

 

Something cool about how she lit this is that half of the display is orange and half is purple.

Somehow it all blends together beautifully.

The purple cemetery:

There's that little ghost that gets me every time! Yip, yip, yip!

Fester N. Rott

I love this photo with those bright orange branches over the purple ones! Can you see the bat?

This is a view down her street. I think there was a full moon that night.

I love this. Super simple, but the bright lights catch all the shapes.

 

I revisited this house and photographed it from a different angle last night. That yellow window makes it!

This next yard had a number of huge inflatables. 

This skull is awesome! It has those "infinity" eyes. 

I'm not sure if you can tell here, but this ghost was hanging out a window. 

This next display was one of my favorites! It was new too. When I was a kid, Maleficent was the Disney villain that scared me the most.

I'm including a number of photos of her, because this is amazing. She even has her bird on her staff!

Of course you can't see it here, but this house had one of those moving light shape projectors going.

The night I took most of these next photos was so much fun. I went out a little later that night and it was definitely spooky out there. I was in an older area of town. These eyes were in the bushes and they slowly faded from dim to bright.

This photo will give you an idea of how it was out there. I chose this one because you can see anything at all. A lot of my other night photos just looked black. I liked how those tree limbs looked being lit just slightly by the street lamp. They remind me of that scene in Disney's Snow White when she's running through the woods and the limbs are grabbing at her. I found that scene scary and cool when I was a kid.

A little further up... I was walking in the streets part of the time and nearly tripped over those massive leaf piles that were for some reason in the middle of the street. Seriously, I think the leaf collection people scooped them into the middle of the road and forgot about them. So that added a little something to my night.

Remember those creepy twins? Yeah, I was using a zoom from my leaf-filled middle of the road view. No way I was getting any closer. Who knows what these people have rigged up at night.

I love how this display was lit! This is one of those that looks like not much in the daytime. But at night, with that red-orange light, it's so festive!

This is my favorite use of one of those spiders. That same spider seems to be crawling all over town this year.

By the time I was walking past these woods, I was questioning my life decisions. That and hoping some random animal didn't run out at me. It was pretty dead silent out there, aside from the occasional cricket.

Remember these stacked pumpkins from Menards? It was fun to actually see them on someone's porch.

I bet it's fun for the trick-or-treaters to run under this to the door. It probably makes for a good photo station too.

Now, this made my night. It made walking past those woods to get to this street worth it. I had never seen a giant inflatable tarantula until that night. It was so massive! This is a one story house and the spider is reaching the roof.

He looks kind of cute now, but at the time, walking down a mostly dark street after passing that forest area... well, he actually scared me.

OK, onto another night that was not so spooky. That's in part because of where I was and also because my mom was with me on this walk. That feels far different than walking around alone in the dark. 

Here's quite the inflatable pumpkin patch.

Don't the colorful autumn leaves look cool in the dark? Just that hint of color fading into blackness. 

This was one of a series of yard stakes. As I recall, the skull and the eyes inside it changed color.

I love these eyeball lights! They must be a new thing this year because I've been seeing them around.

Time for that skeleton-crazy yard from my last blog post.

They had one of those gargoyles too. I can now see what that other man added to his with all those little candles.

Oh, I didn't notice that the skeleton fisherman had a turtle entering the pool. I wonder if that was added since I was there in the day.

Hanging clown ghoulie. Those Brewers-themed lights are all the rage this year. I've seen a number of Halloween/Brewers mashups the past few weeks.

I photographed this window sign last year, but I am much happier with this year's photo!

I love the old-fashioned use of wood decorations and shadows here.

How classic is this! It's like an old postcard.

Lighting can really make the prop.

Anyone who has reached into that candy bowl at Spirit Halloween knows not to.

I liked this so much I posted it twice. I like the lighting on that door and up close.

 

A close-up of that three-headed plant creature that I think was at Lowe's:

 

I'm pretty sure this was a werewolf. I know this picture is super dark, but I think that actually makes it scarier.

The wicked onion!

 

Ending with some sinister, barely lit skeletons:

That was a lot, wasn't it? I'm really impressed with this year's showing! And as I said before, I've had some wonderful, almost summer-like weather to walk around in at night. So that made me just want to get out there and explore more.

If I don't write before tomorrow, Happy Halloween everybody! We are actually having trick-or-treat tomorrow evening, so I'm sure I'll have some stories to share from that. 🍬