Wyoming Halloween Superfans Turn Neighborhoods Into Over-The-Top Scare-Fests

People in her Laramie, Wyoming, neighborhood know Jesica Mora as the Candy Corn Queen. The nickname came from a bit of silliness four or five years ago when she and her husband Jimmy were sitting around the dinner table one fine October day.

“I was just feeling sassy,” she said. “So, I made the declaration that for the rest of the month, they were not allowed to call me mom. They’d have to call me the Candy Corn Queen.”

The children also got to pick their own October names if they liked. 

“My son was the Prince of Pumpkin Pie, because he loves pumpkin pie,” she said. “And then my daughter wanted to be the Princess of 

stuffing, because she loves Thanksgiving and she loves stuffing.”

None of the children’s chosen names stuck, but Mora’s did. She becomes the Candy Corn Queen every October and reigns through December. 

But not only her name undergoes a transformation in honor of Halloween — it’s her whole house and property.

“I’ve got lots of inflatables, and we’re doing a graveyard,” she said. “I’ve got a giant mummy coming out of the ground and a giant pumpkin who I call Everett coming out of the ground.”

Among the newer decorations is a giant witch who Mora named Batty C, because she happens to love Cardi B. The witch flies through the air on a giant broomstick.

“I’m excited ... to be able to put more stuff up,” Mora said. “I’ve got more mummies, more skeletons, more headstones. I’ve got another witch I put out, and she’s got a cauldron that we spray foam into that we painted neon green.”

A smoke machine will go into that cauldron, as well as smoke machines for other areas of the property to give everything just the right spooky thrill come Halloween night.

Call her a Halloween superfan, and Mora won’t mind at all. She’s been obsessed with Halloween since she was a girl.

“You know, some people get really excited for Christmas and go all out,” she said. “I do that for Halloween.”

Not For One Night, It’s A Season

Like the Moras, Meghan Deisch and her husband started their own spooktacular Halloween display about five or six years ago.

The Cheyenne couple also do a huge Christmas display, which they plan to continue. But Halloween has become a favorite. 

The weather is nicer, Deisch pointed out. It’s not freezing cold outside and it’s easier to drive stakes into the ground, which keep their decorations from flying off.

Nicer weather also means they can start putting the display out long before Halloween. They start Sept. 1, giving them plenty of time to arrange and rearrange their little game of Halloween “Tetris.”

Deisch has noticed in starting so early that her neighborhood enjoys this slow reveal. It builds a little anticipation for everyone.

“We get the slow rollers every single night who come by to see what’s new,” she said. “I get people who live in our neighborhood who walk by at night to see what’s new.”

That’s turned their Halloween from a single night of celebration into two months of fun for the family.

The Deisch family’s Halloween display now includes a giant skeleton climbing over the backside of the roof of the family home, while a giant spider appears to be climbing down the front side of the roof on the opposite corner. 

There’s another giant skeleton with a pumpkin head — taller than the house — standing and waving to the world with a perpetual grin on its face.

A bed of lighted pumpkins Deisch has carved herself decorate the top of her home, while giant lighted pumpkins dot the ground, along with lots of other Halloween decorations. 

“We take down our front gates, and we actually have a pathway through the middle of our yard to allow people and their kids to come through,” she said. “They get to walk up the pathway or walk up to the door, get their candy, and then walk through the pathway to see all the displays and all the animatronics and all of that.”

Spooky music plays as they travel through the display, which leads to a gate on the opposite side that finally lets guests out of this haunted patch of land, returning them to the real world.

Changing Halloween Times 

Halloween used to be one night of whirlwind fun on the calendar. It was short, so you couldn’t blink or you’d miss it. 

But what a rush for wide-eyed children who never had enough time to get to all the homes with the best treats, leaving every child wanting more — no matter how full their candy sacks were.

Widespread reports of poisoned candy and razor blade apples — true or not — are part of what spurred changes to the holiday. Parents started going through candy hauls, making sure nothing was tampered with. Hospitals offered to X-ray candy as well for free.

There were fewer homemade treats amid such concerns. No more popcorn balls from the caring grandmother next door. No more brownies from those nice neighbors up the way. 

Trunk and treats began to rise in popularity, too. They offer a more controlled environment with fewer candy worries and better traffic safety. 

Make Halloween Great Again

It's not a change that sits well with everyone.

“I feel like that takes away from the nostalgia of staying out late on Halloween,” Deisch said. “It didn’t matter if it was a school night. You stayed out late, went all over the neighborhood. 

"And you had to fit your costume over your snowsuit, because you lived in Wyoming.”

Trunk and treat events don’t offer the same satisfaction as setting up an elaborate Halloween display and then inviting everyone to come and appreciate it, Mora said.

“My mom used to make us homemade Halloween costumes every year,” she said. “We would go to thrift stores, and her and my aunt would come up with like themed ideas. And we would do group costumes, and my parents would dress up too, and take us out trick or treating. 

"It was just this huge, family-oriented event that we looked forward to every year.”

Like the Deisches, the Moras dress up every year for Halloween. They also prepare a banquet of spooky fun foods.

“I do stuffed peppers, the orange ones, and I carve faces in them so they look like jack-o’-lanterns,” she said. “I’ve done what I call murder man meatloaf, which is meatloaf in the shape of, it looks like a gingerbread cookie. But then I put little olives for the eyes and a little nose and a mouth, and then I’ll stab it with a knife and squirt it with ketchup to look like blood.”

Even though her kids are now grown, they still want to come over for the Halloween dinners, Mora said, and she’s more than happy to provide them.

Spooky Spending

Deisch and Mora aren’t sure how much they spend on their Halloween display each year. 

For one thing, they are shopping for them all year long.

“We kind of follow different Facebook pages, and they all kind of drop hints about what’s possibly coming out,” Deisch said. “And so, my spouse and I kind of sit down and chit-chat about what we think we’d like, that kind of thing, and go from there.”

Mora’s husband Jimmy, meanwhile, just keeps his eyes out for Halloween decorations to surprise his wife with all year long.  

“She keeps a lot of her favorites up all year long in the house,” he added. “And even our giant skeleton, he stays up in the yard all year-round.”

The giant skeleton even has a name: Sylvester Sta-bone, a play on the name of famous movie star Sylvester Stallone.

It’s not just the decorations that Halloween superfans buy that’s fueling the National Retail Federation predicts will be a $13.1 billion retail trend this year. 

Both families will also buy hundreds of pieces of candy to pass out Halloween night, along with accessories for their costumes, and anything else they need to make the occasion feel appropriately festive.

Deisch said she and her family gave out 750 full-sized candy bars to children last year, while Mora estimated she gave out around 500 pieces of random candies.

Remember When There Were No Bills?

Nostalgia is a big part of the trend for both Deisch and Mora, but it’s not the only driver.

“There’s so much bad stuff and depressing things going on int he world,” Mora said. “People are just holding onto things that bring them joy. And, if it’s Halloween, then let’s do it.”

That’s part of the reason why Mora keeps some of her Halloween decorations up all year.

“I have Halloween pajamas,” she said. “I wear year-round slippers and sweaters. I am just the crazy Halloween lady.”

Mora thinks the holiday also helps give adults a momentary escape.

“It helps them get in touch with like their childhood again and remember what it was like to not pay bills and just go house to house and eat candy,” she said. 

For Deisch, what fuels their display is the joy on everyone’s face when they stroll through her Halloween wonderland.

“We enjoy seeing all the kids smiles and stuff, watching their reactions when they come in through the yard,” Deisch said. “It just kind of puts a smile on our face. We both get into costume and stand outside all night and hand out the candy, so we get to listen to all those reactions.”

Many of her Halloween guests come back year after year, Deisch added, and she feels like she’s part of helping to make Halloween great again for others, which is what she and her husband wanted when they started this.

“We grew up where your family took you out on Christmas eve night and you’d look at the Christmas lights, drink hot cocoa, go home and get a plate ready for Santa and go to bed,” she said. “And it always meant a lot to us to be like, ‘Oh, I remember this house, I remember that house.’

"And so we wanted to be like that for the kid who maybe doesn’t get to go trick or treating, but their parents go out and look around or whatever.”

That’s why she thinks more people are decorating homes for Halloween. It’s trying to bring back something that was lost when people went from visiting their neighbors for Halloween, to going downtown to visit businesses instead. 

“This draws the kids to your neighborhood, and then (it helps) if you can get some other people in the neighborhood to do it, too,” she said. “I think you see people decorating more now to try and bring back the nostalgia of going door-to-door, instead of doing these little, trunk or treats or whatever.”