Digression: Wagner's Halloween decorations

Every year, Wagner decorates his house for Halloween. I don't mean the plastic skeleton on the door (which comprises MY sole Halloween decorating this year), or the fake tombstones in the yard, or the cobwebs on the bushes. I mean an all-out spectacular display. He kept urging us to bring the children by one evening. So Saturday night we went out to his house. We knew it was something special when we saw the dim glow of lights a block away, and crowds of people parking and walking up to the house.

Apparently we weren't the only ones who thought the decorations were pretty special, because somebody sent in a photo of Wagner's house to the Today Show's national contest for best Halloween decorations, and it was named one of the 3 finalists. If you stumble across this blog before Halloween, you can go to the website and vote:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/27364818/

I wouldn't presume to tell people how to vote, but fyi, Wagner's house is House #1. ;-)

[UPDATE EDIT: I wrote last night that Wagner's house had lost by a hair, but it turns out that the web page I was looking at showing the vote tallies hadn't been updated. The show's producers called him last night and said that their house had won, and they announced it on the air Halloween morning. Wagner also said that the producers told him that the Today show didn't have a "big budget" and so the prize would be two "Today Show" coffee cups filled with candy. WOOT.]

The photo (copied above) doesn't really do the decorations justice. His yard was jam-packed full of skeletons in outlandish poses and costumes, both scary (emerging slowly out of coffin) and funny (a porta-potty opens to reveal a skeleton pulling up his boxers).

Wagner says he usually gets 450-500 children coming by for trick or treat. Now with all the publicity (once the local paper and news stations found out about the Today Show contest, they sent crews of their own to cover it, spying an opportunity to drum up good publicity for Lexington), he's worried he's going to have to go out and buy even more candy.

As for me, my plastic skeleton on the door is looking pretty lame. I think I'll go out and buy some cobwebs for the bushes.