Marilyn Bohn | Creative Organizer

What do you think of Halloween? I didn’t used to ‘celebrate’ Halloween, the kids would come, I would give out chocolate candy bars, and I made my children’s costumes out of things around the house as I don’t believe in spending money on costumes. I didn’t have any decorations for Halloween.

Things have changed a lot. I no longer have children at home, last year we only had 11 trick or treat-ers. (I have a lot of puzzles left over I was giving out). We used to have 80 trick or treat-ers. And I now have two plastic bins and a canister of Halloween decorations.

Things have changed for two reasons: I used to have a friend who hated Halloween and then I met a new friend, Edna, who loves Halloween. Edna would give me wonderful Halloween decorations so little by little with my treasures multiplying I warmed to Halloween. My daughters wondered what had happened to their mother when they came for a visit because I had all of these cute decorations. They would say, “but you don’t like Halloween”, not true, I just never had any decorations.

Now as I get out my decorations I think of my two friends and I feel my life is enriched by each one of them. My tip to enjoy getting out the decorations is to have storage bins to put them in so they are all organized together. They make color coded containers now which are great. Orange and black (of course) for Halloween. Or the clear plastic ones, labeled on the outside. To me as a professional home and office organizer it is as important to store in a logical way things we only use once a year as it is to keep our closets and drawers organized on an ongoing basis.

Happy month of October to all you ghouls and guys.