Some Burke residents go all out for spooky season

From Lake James to downtown Morganton, several area residents have gone all out in the spirit of spooky season, when trick-or-treaters slide into their costumes, grab the largest bucket they can find, and take to the streets to scout out all the sugar they can grab.

On Northview Drive near Lake James, LeAnn Matthei starts working on a new project every year in August, and she tries to stick to a certain theme each year. This year’s theme, she said, was converting a kids’ 24-volt power wheel into a haunted carriage.

Getting all of her decorations up is a lengthy process, Matthei said.

“It takes me about one week to carry all the boxes down from the attic; a week to decorate outside and a week to do inside,” she said, adding that she tries to have her decorating outside completed by the first week of October and inside the following week.

Each year brings a new inflatable decoration for outside. This year is the mayor’s car from the “Nightmare Before Christmas.” It was that movie that made Mattei fall in love with Halloween. Matthei said that inside, she also has a black Christmas tree decorated with vintage Halloween ornaments that are hard to come by. She has been “going all out” for over two decades.

Over on Riverside Drive in downtown Morganton, the lights go on between 6-6:30 p.m., and that’s when the neighborhood kids love to come check out Nick Anderson’s home, who has been decorating for about 10 years.

Anderson makes several of his props and starts planning a year in advance, with fabrication of new props beginning in June. He begins setting up in September so that everything can be ready on Oct. 1.

“I started fabricating about six years ago, creating my own mannequins and props, improving techniques and learning new ones each year,” Anderson said, adding that this year the cemetery and scary trees in his yard are handmade.

Anderson doesn’t stop adding props to the yard until Halloween night. He recently added a suggestion box so that the kids in the neighborhood can tell him what they’d like to see. He’s received more than a dozen suggestions so far that he hopes to incorporate into the Halloween decorations next year.

The Paper’s requested readers’ picks of the area’s best-decorated homes for Halloween. In addition to Matthei and Anderson, a top vote-getter is the home in downtown Glen Alpine, on Linville Street, next to the downtown shops. The second most popular home is on Messer Road, and a few honorable mentions for houses on Valdese Avenue.