Different holidays are extra special to different families. For some, it’s Thanksgiving. Others, it’s Christmas.
For the Standinghorn family, it’s Halloween without a doubt. Their house on Douglas Avenue near Centennial Park is packed with Halloween decorations and isn’t even on full display yet.
(Ryan Lambert/battlefordsNOW)Some of the displays they have include Beetlejuice, Dracula, a cemetery, skeletons, witches, the exorcist and much more.
Ed Standinghorn dresses up as Michael Myers each year, and they even bring in some high school and college students as scare actors. Nikki Standinghorn said that they have five granddaughters, and they can’t be princesses on Halloween.
“They can be princesses any time of year. But Halloween, you’re witches and you’re goblins and things like that.”
(Ryan Lambert/battlefordsNOW)Last year, they got so many trick-or-treaters that they had to restock twice during the evening. Even after that, they ran out of candy after two trips to the store.
“I had enough for about 800. After 800, my husband went to Walmart and bought out whatever he could, like their pop and chips. Ran out of that by probably 8:00. He went to No Frills, stocked up there. At 12:43, we locked our doors and shut our lights,” said Nikki.
(Ryan Lambert/battlefordsNOW)They even had more than 100 more kids come to check out the display, even though they didn’t have anything else to hand out.
“It was so crazy last year. Vehicles were just lined up. The police were directing traffic. People were parking in the parking lot just to come here… they would just come here, then leave,” said Nikki.
She said that as of right now, they plan on giving away pop cans to kids this year, but hasn’t decided if they want to just stick with pop or give out more like last year. Nonetheless, they are prepared for 1,600 kids this time around.
“I’d rather have too [much] than not enough.”
(Ryan Lambert/battlefordsNOW)Nikki had a very specific reason that she loves Halloween: for the children.
“I just love Halloween because Halloween’s just for the kids, right? Where they get to act off, where they get to go and get candy, and there’s nothing expected of them. It’s just like, wow, this is so cool. Whereas Christmas is really commercialized about everything you get, right? We do Christmas, but we don’t do it like this.”
(Ryan Lambert/battlefordsNOW)Nikki has said people can go and take photos at their front display before Halloween. While it’s an impressive display already, the real show will come on the night of the 31st.
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Ryan.Lambert@pattisonmedia.com
