over(hallo)weening
I must say, it seems like folks have outdone themselves with halloween decorations this year. On the next street over there are a pair of houses next to each other that together must have about eight of those oversized inflatable lawn decorations, the ones with lights inside: there are a few giant pumpkins, one Frankenstein's monster rising from a grave, and some kind of snow-globe thing with bats inside instead of snow (they blow around in the wind from the fan that keeps the thing inflated). Down the street from us is a place with a pretty terrifying-looking scarecrow in the front lawn, a scarecrow holding a severed head with blood liberally coating the neck. Those folks also have similar figures showing in each of their downstairs windows.
Those are only the two most striking examples in a ten-house radius from us; there are probably even more extreme ones elsewhere. And that's not to mention the gravestones and spiderwebs and skulls hanging from trees that adorn about every other house. Witches that look like they crashed into trees, too. When did this happen? There weren't any halloween decorations at all when I was little, I'm sure. Well, the jack-o-lanterns, of course, but that's different. Personally, I can't imagine wanting all that gruesome stuff in my lawn, and the kitchy stuff isn't much better. And to be truthful, I'm not such a big fan of looking at in in other people's, either. Still, live and let live, right? To each his own and what not. Luckily the holiday will have come and gone in a few days, and then people will have to take down their halloween junk to make room for the Christmas decorations.