Like the concept of dressing in costume for Halloween dates back to the ancient Celts, decorating homes also derived from the Irish. American marketing has taken it to a whole new level.

Because of the dark history of Halloween, it wasn’t a big part of early American settlements. When Irish immigrants came to America in large numbers after the Irish potato famine, they brought their Celtic customs, including celebrating Halloween. Over the years, Halloween celebrations started getting wilder and turning violent. Due to this and sugar rationing during World War II, celebrating Halloween was all but abandoned. Post-war, Halloween was once again embraced as a kid-friendly holiday.

Photo by Chuck Gekas

Carved turnips and pumpkins transitioned from warding off spirits to illuminating homes to becoming decorations. With the success of Christmas decorations, companies seized the opportunity to extend their product lines to include Halloween. Other classic Halloween symbols joined pumpkins as Halloween house-decorating became second only to Christmas.

Photo by Hassan Khamsei

I am a big fan of house decorating for any holiday. The best decorations aren’t the largest. I prefer tasteful, artistic decorating. A little extra thought in spacing, color theme and cohesion is much better than a yard full of random objects. Appropriately colored lights are a plus, but, please, no red and green themes for Halloween.

Decorated houses usually start appearing in early October. This year I took pictures of a few of my favorites, and some of my friends joined the fun and sent their favorites to me.

— John Wroblewski, online writer

Photo by Nancy Blais