Here's how to weatherproof your Halloween mega-monsters
What’s scarier than a twelve-foot-tall skeleton with flames for eyes? Watching four hundred dollars’ worth of bones blow down your street in a gust of October wind.
They may be spooky—but they’re also pricey. Those giant Halloween decorations can cost hundreds of dollars, and October’s wind and rain can send them tumbling.
Home Depot’s Halloween aisle has been making headlines every single year since 2020, when a 12-foot-tall skeleton named Skelly made its first appearance, sparking a trending wave of giant decorations across North America.
"Skelly has been with us just over five years now," says Aimee Hartmann, a seasonal Halloween and holiday décor merchant at Home Depot Canada. "We’ve been repeating him every year. He is still one of our top sellers."
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Hartmann also adds that Skelly's family has grown with the addition of a giant skeleton cat and dog.
Skelly is the founder of the giant Halloween decoration trend, and his family now includes a cat and a dog. (Lauren O'Neil/TWN)
But big decorations can be a big investment—so keeping them upright is important.
How to keep your Halloween decorations from blowing away this season
"Most of the large units come with tethers and stakes, and they are mounted on a base," Hartmann says. "We do recommend securing them into the ground with stakes. There are extra cables and tethers in our hardware department as well."
Online, you’ll find plenty of creative hacks, and Hartmann says some of them really work!
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Sandbags, bricks, and pavers are great ways to weigh down your giant decorations, and using landscape fabric with mulch to cover it up will give them a fantastic finished look.
If you do learn that severe weather’s on the way, experts say you may want to bring your monsters inside—or at least bring them down to ground level.
"On those really, really windy days, you know, depending on sort of your area, you may want to lay them down just if you get into those really strong, strong windstorms..."
Big Halloween energy is fun... that is, until the wind picks up. So stake it, secure it, and you’ll stay spooky all season long!
Thumbnail image credit to @JackulasCastle/YouTube.