by Athena Garner

Created on: October 16, 2009

Be that house on your block that every kid is dying to visit. Make your house so scary and fantastic that each gaggle of trick-or-treaters that comes down your street makes a beeline for your home, skipping all the other mediocre houses on their way to you. If you're having a Halloween party, leave your guests with no doubt as to which house they're looking for.

At Halloween, your yard will not be complete without a Jack-o'-lantern. Or twenty. Carved or uncarved, real or artificial, you can't have too many pumpkins. Line your walkway with them. Pile up the miniature ones or make a pumpkin snowman with three big ones stacked beside your door. Make a classic, smiling face with your kids or buy a stencil kit and etch the entire cast of "Friends" onto a slew of those orange orbs. Either way your guests will be terrified. Any self-respecting Halloween store will sell you an electric Jack-o'-lantern, usually in a variety of neon colors. Mix them in with the real thing or save yourself the trouble of getting pumpkin guts up to your elbows and go with all artificial.

The other Halloween must-have is fake cobwebs. String them from lights, mailboxes, fences and windows. Cover the bushes, the cars and the dog...if he'll sit still. If he won't, stick him in a costume and leash him to the railing to help greet trick-or-treaters. Fake cobwebs also come in various colors in addition to natural, creepy white. Don't forget the giant fake spiders that live in your fake webs. Not just one per house, either. Each web must have at least one big, hairy spider.

If you've still got room on the porch, set up a witch's cauldron full of dry ice to waft its fog all over the driveway. Strobe lights are also great to accentuate the spook factor of your house. Place them behind the shrubbery or in a window. And don't focus on just the front of your home. Start the decorations right at the street. Use the pumpkins and cobwebs mentioned above to turn your driveway into a pathway of terror. On your way to the checkout counter at the Halloween store, grab a few plastic skeleton parts to hang out of your car door. Stick a couple of arm bones in the yard as if someone is trying to claw their way out of the soil.

Go for a theme such as haunted house or witch's lair or just strew decorations willy-nilly about your yard and porch. Whatever the plan, have fun and look forward your guests' reactions as they enter your realm or horror.

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