BYOP

Last Tuesday was major. I was hit by a bus. Well, not me – but my car. And I was in the car. So yeah, me. I was hit by a bus. I checked out the Tim Burton Exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. And I hosted a pumpkin carving.

I hadn’t carved a pumpkin in as long as I can remember, and after picking up the most perfect, roundest, orangest pumpkin in sight I was super stoked. The party was BYOP, the P being for pumpkin obviously.  We loaded up on Dearly Beloved Forever Red Wine, found at Trader Joe’s prior to my incident with public transit, and it couldn’t have been more perfect for the occasion. The lovely Andi was sweet enough to bring spooky snacks resembling mummies. And after finding ourselves in the candy aisle at Target – a very dangerous place to be – Austin and I had, and still have, enough Halloween candy to feed every trick or treater in Los Angeles. But more importantly, our house looked fantastic.

Jars of candy corn sat in our front kitchen window. The window looked more like a crime scene complete with bloody hand prints and creepy crawly spiders. Those creepy crawly spiders also graced our dining room, and the spider webs that took over our doorway. But perhaps my favorite festive décor is found on our dining room table. Inspired after hours on pinterest, Austin and I headed to Home Depot. The gnarliest, knottiest fence post became our table runner, the perfect centerpiece for melted candles of all sizes, darling miniature pumpkins, and spiders, of course. The coolest thing about this table runner was how it transformed over the course of the spooky holiday – candles melting at different speeds, wax dripping and running every which way, candles burning out entirely making room for new. I love it even more now than I did days ago. So much so that it still graces our table. That, and I just don’t really feel like cleaning up quite yet. And besides, what screams holiday more than candy corn and plastic spiders? Nothing.