Since my previous post was about my past life of scaredy-cat-ness, I was recently reminded of another story that makes my now-spooky self cringe with embarrassment, but it’s also so silly that I thought it would be fun to share.
Now, as an adult, I’ve come to know and appreciate the many different themes and aesthetics of Halloween/spooky decor. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I consider my personal aesthetic to be something along the lines of, “Vintage Halloween Party Meets Haunted Pumpkin Patch”. Very heavy on the orange, pumpkins everywhere but of varying degrees of rot and facial expression/intent, that sort of thing. I’m not sure if I could pinpoint this as my exact aesthetic in childhood. My pumpkinseed self decorated basically with whatever small, cute, family-friendly things I could afford on allowance and birthday money, with an emphasis on pumpkins, cutesy sheet ghosts, and of course, those tiny, generic little scarecrows that never seem to go out of style, and are the most affordable option for the autumn-inclined eight-year-old, unless you’re at the dollar store.
I’m not sure at which age I started to realize that there was more to Halloween decor than just smiling pumpkins and ghosts and happy, cheap scarecrows. I know I was spooked by a man in a werewolf costume when I was four, and again by someone masquerading as Freddy Krueger when I was six, but somehow I regarded these as “fluke” experiences. In my younger years, I never regarded horror as a part of Halloween. They were two separate entities, with the former being something I wanted no part of at the time.
However, on one fateful night, I discovered that maybe there was more of a connection between the two things than I cared to admit.
Now, I’m not sure if it was like this for everyone, but it seems like many kids grow up with that one fast food restaurant that is their family’s go-to, the one that’s closer to their home than any of the others, visited often when something goes wrong or someone just doesn’t feel like cooking, etc. For me, that was McDonald’s. It was maybe ten minutes away, and conveniently located right next to the local supermarket. If my family got fast food, McDonald’s was usually it. We didn’t eat it to excess, of course, but it was pretty set in stone that if my family was going to get something from the “outside world” to eat, it was either going to be pizza or McDonald’s.
With that said, the constancy of McDonald’s as “the” fast food chain had a way of making any other fast food restaurant seem like a treat. Maybe not as big of a treat as going to a restaurant or diner, but special, somehow, nonetheless, especially to a kid with homebody parents who didn’t really get to go out all that often.
One night, when I was somewhere between the ages of seven and nine, I can’t remember for sure, my mother brought up the idea of going to Burger King. Burger King was in the opposite direction of our home from McDonald’s, and a slightly further ride. (Technically it was actually in a different state, as I grew up about ten minutes from a border that connected northern New Jersey to northern New York.) This excited me, because the slightly further distance meant that we most likely wouldn’t be bringing the food home, but eating inside. (This didn’t happen often in my childhood, as my father liked to sit in the car and eat if we got fast food without the intention to bring it home. I’m not entirely sure why, but the vast majority of meals I ever had outside the house with my father were eaten in the car.) Even more exciting was the fact that it was near Halloween, which meant the place would probably be decorated, and they’d likely be giving out Halloween-themed toys. (Though as sick as I may have gotten of McDonald’s at times, they will always reign supreme in the Halloween fast food toy premium market.) Sounds like a Halloween-loving, doesn’t-get-out-much kid’s dream, right?
Sadly, not.
I had, in fact, been right about the Burger King being decorated. However, I had been expecting pumpkins and ghosts and the “cuter” side of spooky. But, all over the restaurant, the “severed “ heads of vampires, werewolves, mummies, and monsters were prominently displayed.
Now, I’ve never been exactly sure which particular set of die cuts this establishment had chosen as their go-to decor that year, but I often see pictures online, from different vintage Halloween groups that I’m in, or eBay auctions, etc., that bring them to mind. And, if anyone from that Burger King’s payroll happened to save those decorations, they’d probably be sitting on a small goldmine, because believe me when I tell you, these die cuts were everywhere in this restaurant, or at least it seemed that way. My mother suggested trying to sit somewhere where they weren’t so prominent, but I could feel them staring at me from every corner of the place, so we wound up bringing our food home, and, most likely, having to reheat it.
That was the night, though, that I started to become aware of different decor styles, and the fact that there might actually be some aspects of Halloween that I didn’t quite like. I know nowadays, Halloween decorations can be so extreme that neighbors end up calling the cops because it looks like an actual crime scene, but for me, at that time, these monster heads were probably the darkest decorations I had seen relating to my favorite holiday.
I actually did go through a phase, in my early twenties, where I preferred the darker, more gothic side of spooky, with my decor teetering toward skulls and grim reapers and strange looking monsters…that actually remained my outdoor decor aesthetic until I moved out of my childhood home (These days I don’t really decorate outside since I’m never home on Halloween anyway, and taking things down is just too depressing.) but while I still do enjoy and appreciate the style, it doesn’t really say “Halloween” to me in the same way that my current aesthetic does.
As far as what decorations these were, I’ve honestly never been able to find a picture that makes me go, “Yes! These are the ones!” despite seeing so many different Halloween decorations every day. It’s possible that I’ve never seen them again, but it’s even more possible that my pumpkinseed brain tried extra-hard to erase those images from my memory…and succeeded.
These guys seem to be most likely suspects, as they’re Beistle and almost every fast food chain tends to buy Beistle decorations in bulk, but I swear I remember them being less cartoony than this, although the vampire and the mummy do still look pretty terrifying, especially if you’re a scaredy-cat kid.
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