This time of year is one of Becky Tyner-Belt’s favorites, but any number of things in her house might scare the living daylights out of you if you aren’t expecting them.
Tyner-Belt was raised watching black and white horror movies with her dad in Tolu, where she decorated her bedroom as a young girl with plastic models from “The Creature from the Black Lagoon.” Her love of all things Halloween continued through adulthood, enjoyed also by her late husband Herschel, and now includes an impressive collection of Lenox pumpkins and Christopher Radko figurines along with a set of delicate vintage mummies and funeral home fans.
Yes, funeral home fans. Tyner-Belt has collected the fans, which served two purposes in the days before air conditioning – to cool guests in the funeral parlor as well as advertise their services. She has about 100 in her collection, which she and friends have picked up at antique stores.
Through the years, gifts from friends have been quite frequently Halloween decor.
(Trick or Treat on Main Street is Tuesday afternoon and The Press will be taking its customary Halloween costume photos at that time)
There are conversation pieces at every turn, from the front door to the back, where guests are welcomed by a baby zombie and a vintage talking clown.
The heads of Count and Countess Dracula sit overlooking a festive dining room table while a life-size witch periodically expresses its spooky sentiment when activated by motion or sound, as does a floating clown that dances along the hardwood floor, sharing its own frightening greetings.
It takes several weeks for Tyner-Belt to prepare her home for the October holiday. Beginning in August she unpacks totes and replaces traditional wall art with witchy canvases and temporarily stashes modern throw pillows to make way for black and orange ones. Her guests enjoy visiting during Halloween, especially when she makes cheese balls in a skull mold or miniature chocolate pie crusts that look like skulls.
Her love of Halloween doesn’t stop with decor. Tyner-Belt has a collection of scary novels and the season’s .... (for the rest of this article see this week's printed edition of The Crittenden Press).
