Halloween and Christmas displays turn heads at Beaverdale home

Halloween is a time for trick-or-treaters, fun costumes, scary movies and, perhaps, a trip to a haunted house or two. For David Ladd, it is a time to let his imagination run wild in preparation for decorating his home for all to see.

Halloween and Christmas provide homeowners the opportunity to transform their lawns into something special for passersby to appreciate, and few take advantage of the opportunity better than Ladd. His inspiration to start the yearly tradition came from his childhood.

“I grew up in a house that was always decorated. My parents always decorated inside. My folks live on a corner lot as well, and my dad does not get out-decorated in his neighborhood. So, I’ve always been drawn to it. And then when the kids were young, it made it fun for them — and it’s fun for me,” Ladd said. 

Ladd has been doing large decorations at his Beaverdale home for more than 20 years and has developed a reputation in the process.

“It just kind of grows every year. I’ve ended up on some of the tours. Some of the limo companies know that I’ve got lights, and I see them come by at Christmas. We’ve lived here for over 30 years, so the neighborhood knows that I usually decorate pretty good,” Ladd said.

Christmas is his bread and butter, but that hasn’t stopped Ladd from continuing to build up what his Halloween display looks like. He says the October holiday decoration has ramped up in the last six to seven years. The growth of these decorations led to a recent addition.

“Everything was in the garage, up in the attic, and it was just getting to be too much weight up there. And, as I’m getting older, I realized I didn’t need to be climbing ladders as much as I was. As the kids have evolved out of play sets and trampolines, I had that space available in the yard, so it just made sense to put a shed there and make storage easier,” Ladd said.

The extra storage space is certainly needed for the enhanced display.

“It probably started with a few hundred lights in the trees and some light-up pumpkins, too, where now it’s probably 4,000 to 5,000 lights. And then, I don’t know how many characters and skeletons, spiders and tombstones I’ve got. I’m a sucker for thrift store finds and Goodwill treasures and after-season sales,” Ladd said.

While some people go for scarier decorations, Ladd keeps his display family-friendly.

“It’s really for the kids. The Christmas display you can drive by and appreciate, but to really check everything out for Halloween, it’s about the kids that are walking up to the front door to trick or treat,” Ladd said. “They actually get so distracted looking at everything that they forget that I’m handing them candy.” 

Ladd says it takes him about two to three days of casual work to set up his Halloween display. The weather in October is much friendlier than the weather around Christmas time, which causes the Christmas display to take longer to set up. 

A couple of the major elements of his displays include the characters of “The Nightmare Before Christmas” adorning the side of his home for Halloween. A projector plays in the window, making it seem as if skeletons, ghosts and ghouls are dancing around the house. For Christmas, the same projector shows Santa walking inside the house and waving out the window.

“I had a little boy that’s a friend of mine through work, and his grandparents brought him by to see the display, and he held me to the fire. He’s like, ‘Why was Santa in your house?’ I told him, that as a mailman, we work with Santa. We deliver presents, and we help him out,” Ladd said. n