Presidential Pumpkins & Cool Halloween Decor

Every year Halloween gets bigger and more expensive.  This year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Americans will spend  over $8 billion on Halloween  costumes, candy and decor--averaging about $80 per person.  According to the New York Post, Americans are going to spend $310 million just on Halloween costumes for their DOGS.

Which pumpkin are you voting for?

In the past couple of weeks I've been photographing Halloween decor as it appears in the Worcester area of Massachusetts where I live.  On Saturday I checked out the Great Pumpkin Fest at the Ecotarium, Worcester's Science Museum, which included 1,500 carved and lighted pumpkins and about a zillion kids in costumes.

Would you prefer one of these guys?

Or maybe this one?

Here's the entrance to the Museum.

And a black cat nearby.

Private home owners are getting competitive, spending as much time and money decorating for Halloween as they do for Christmas.  Maybe more.

Here's a home in Grafton right down Route 140 from our house, which is stopping traffic.

This house-owner on Lake Quinsigamond has inflatables for every holiday.

But I guess no one around here can complete with this house in  Leesburg, VA. which lights up and dances Gangnam style to the piped in music.  It has more than 8,500 lights and lots of computers.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/halloween-goes-gangnam-style-video-184352374.html

Here's a skeletal couple that I glimpsed outside a bar while passing through the Miami, FL. airport recently.  They're ready for  Day of the Dead (Nov. 1 and 2), which is an even cooler holiday that celebrates the return of the souls of the dead.  In Mexico it's celebrated with wonderful decorations of flowers on the graves, candy skulls, candles, sitting up all night in the cemetery passing out the food and drink enjoyed by the dear departed, welcoming friends and relatives with music and fun and molé negro and decorated bread.   That's the kind of holiday I'd like to come back to when I'm gone.