Trick Arrrrrrr Treat

It is October in Northern Virginia, and that means one thing above all else: the pirate house has gone bananas*.

Why, yes that IS a life-size Johnny Depp figure atop that throne. Doesn't everyone have one of those?

We make it a point every year to see the display. There's a neighborhood contest for Halloween decorating, and this house is so far past what anyone else does that they've taken themselves out of the contest after winning so many times that it just didn't seem fair to compete anymore. This year, there was a small sign in the yard indicating that the house was in the neighborhood Hall Of Fame; I've never heard of such a thing, which leads me to believe that they invented a new category of prize just to have something worthy of presenting to this display.

We've watched the pirate house Halloween display grow for three years. This is a new feature.

I've been there in the evening, usually on trick-or-treat night, when there is a police presence directing traffic on the street, because otherwise cars will just stop and stare, and nobody can get through. Even the cops I've seen on this duty will spend a lot of time looking over their shoulder, as though they still haven't managed to take in everything.

I think the bar is also new, but some of the patrons are regulars.

Two animatronic skeletal pirates flank the sidewalk to the front porch. Trick-or-treaters have to make it through that gauntlet.

On Beggars' Night the homeowners have a party for their friends, everyone in costume, and they take shifts handing out candy while the rest of the guests stay inside, enjoying whatever pirates enjoy. We want to become their friends just to get in on the action. Outside, the yard gets methodically trampled as hundreds of people wander through, gaping and taking pictures. The display takes at least a month to install, and nearly as long to get re-packed after Halloween. (I have seen the pirate ship re-fitted as an enormous Santa Sleigh for Christmas)

Even the ship has grown over the past couple years.

A couple years ago, Hurricane Sandy slapped the bejeezus out of the East Coast. We didn't get the worst of it here, but we still had our share of ridiculous rain and lots of wind. The timing was really bad for the pirate house; they had almost finished the display when the storms began, and they had to hurry to get everything inside and protected. We happened to walk by the next day and saw a woman on the porch, shaking her head and looking tiredly at the sodden figures left on the lawn. I was impressed more with how they rallied: the storms abated about a day and a half before Halloween, and by the time the trick or treaters arrived, you couldn't tell anything had been removed. The entire pirate-witch-zombie-skeleton crew had been restored to their positions, and all the light and sound had resumed. I can only assume they had lots of help from their party guests.

In addition to the yard full of pirate madness, there's also a coven of witches cackling off to the side, welcoming victims/guests to their cauldron.

* this is the same as going apeshit, but with less processing.