Lisa Bowman has loved Halloween since she was a child. “It’s always been my very favorite holiday,” she notes. As an adult, she gained an appreciation for the history and traditions that encompass Halloween. She’s also embraced the creative aspects that the season provides.
Lisa Bowman awaits the arrival of trick-or-treaters on the front steps of her home in Lancaster. Halloween has always been her favorite holiday and that fact is reflected in the creative manner in which she decorates the exterior of her home.
I know what you’re probably thinking. Isn’t it a little early for Halloween? Apparently not! I found myself out of luck when I perused the big home stores in search of a summery door mat in late May. Instead, the shelves were in the process of being stocked for Halloween! Stores of all sorts and sizes followed suit as soon as July 5 appeared on the calendar, as did online sources. It seems that Pinterest- and Instagram-crazed members of the younger generation prefer to shop early so that they can swing into Halloween mode right after Labor Day and post pictures by the time fall arrives.
Just as with Christmas, we’re seeing Halloween decorations go up earlier every year. The two powerhouses – where consumer spending is concerned – have formed a juggernaut that has taken on monikers such as Halloweenmas and Yuleoween. Last year, Halloween spending reached a record $12.2 billion. “The big picture is that Halloween is more popular than ever,” the National Retail Federation’s Katherine Cullen wrote in a 2023 blog that shared a record 73% of consumers planned to mark the holiday in some fashion. Interestingly, Halloween has become a big party night for adults; only New Year’s Eve and the Super Bowl out-pace Halloween.
Pumpkins, lighting, bats, container gardens, swags of bittersweet and foliage are used to create the seasonal décor.
“Halloween is just fun,” Lisa says. Like many members of the baby boom and Gen X generations, Halloween stirs up nostalgic memories for her. “So many memories,” she muses, saying that in her estimation, Halloween was the “highlight of the kid year,” because it was “the only night when you were allowed to stay out after dark.” She also recalls all the planning that went into creating a costume. “Nobody went to a store for a costume,” she says. She remembers being mesmerized by It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which made its television debut in 1966. She was also enamored of Dark Shadows, The Munsters and The Addams Family, which she credits for her love of anything Victorian and all things gothic. When Halloween approached, special desserts emerged from her mother’s kitchen. Another favorite memory centers on the family getting crafty and making decorations and carving pumpkins.
Lisa credits Martha Stewart for creating a newfound interest in heirloom pumpkins and gourds.
Later, television would help to elevate Lisa’s imagination in regards to Halloween décor, thanks to Martha Stewart, whose first primetime Halloween special aired in 2005. For Lisa, Martha Stewart Living (the magazine) became her bible. “The photography, the styling, it was just beautiful,” she remarks. In Lisa’s estimation, Martha “put holidays, as we now know them, on the map.” As for Halloween, she points to Martha as being the catalyst behind the revival of heirloom varieties of pumpkins and gourds. “She was the first to carve white pumpkins,” Lisa notes. “When I was a kid, the selection extended only to the orange pumpkins. Now, you can go to any farmstand or garden center and the selection is huge.”
Lisa’s creativity and love of plants initially led her to become a floral designer. She credits her first employer, Nancy Gingrich Shenk, for teaching her how to decorate a Christmas tree. When she launched her own business, working with clients led her down other avenues. “When I started out, event planning was an unknown commodity,” she says. “I kind of backed into it by doing little things to elevate a client’s parties. When someone would say, ‘If I just had whatever,’ I’d run to my house and get it. I helped many a client with their Halloween parties.”
An exhibit of Japanese Kabuki masks prompted Lisa to create masks out of pumpkins by carving them lengthwise and hanging them on doors and windows. They can be illuminated with candles or battery-operated lights.
Lisa discovered that her “knack for anticipating” everything from last-minute needs to averting disasters added to her success in planning weddings and other events. “I was kind of an oddity,” she says of her yin and yang ability to combine creativity and managerial skills. “Being thanked for providing a family with the best day possible is a memory that will stay with me forever,” she says of the 20 years she spent designing florals and planning events.
Now, Lisa uses her home in Lancaster City as her creative outlet. Here, her interests in architecture, art, history, period furnishings, antiques, books, travel, nature and gardening are readily evident. At Halloween, the house especially comes alive. She loves the history and folklore that are connected to Halloween, notably the fact that the Irish and Scots brought the tradition of carving turnips at Halloween time to America and adapted to using pumpkins to mark the holiday. “People brought their customs here and they mixed and mingled to create an American phenomenon,” she says of modern-day Halloween. She likes the fact that pumpkins once had a practical side in that they were grown to feed cattle and provide settlers with food ingredients that had staying power. Hence the need for a pumpkin patch, she points out.
Inspired by the decorated windows she saw in Europe, Lisa transformed her living room windows into tableaus that she fills with finds and mementos.
Lisa’s travels have provided her with opportunities to experience Day of the Dead observances in the American Southwest and in Poland. The marigolds that decorate windowsills and other spaces pay homage to that tradition.
Trips to Europe, where people decorate their windows with treasures, inspired Lisa to begin creating tableaus in the windows of her living room. They are filled with things she has collected since she was a child, including the small shark jaw she begged her parents to buy when she spied it in a shop in Boston. Dried roses, seashells, antique glassware, antlers, a silver squirrel (Stephan) she bought at her favorite flower shop in Amsterdam, a piece of marble, green apples and two horse-like creatures she calls Victor and Hugo (purchased at a shop in Paris) fill the windows.
The bats recall a childhood spent crafting the winged creatures out of construction paper.
The windows, like the exterior of the house, are illuminated with green string lights. “I love to use green lighting for Halloween,” she says. “As soon as Stauffers has them in stock, I’m there. I also like to use blue lights at Christmas.” She traces her fascination with green lighting to her favorite Disney movie, Sleeping Beauty. “The wicked witch, Maleficent, always had a green aura of light around her,” Lisa explains, noting that the green lighting effect was used in several Hitchcock movies of the ’50s and ’60s. The green lighting also helps Lisa to overcome the challenge of competing with the streetlights.
A found mirror was used to create an optical illusion. It appears there are two pumpkins but in reality it’s one that has two faces, one of which is reflected in the mirror.
Lighting challenges are also overcome by using a theatrical trick Lisa discovered years ago. Gels, she explains, can transform and add interest to even the most mundane of spaces. “If the lighting isn’t good, you, your decorations and the table won’t look good,” she says of an event as grand as a wedding or as intimate as a dinner party at home. Gels are available in a wide range of colors and are relatively inexpensive. “You can buy them online,” she says.
Lisa also likes to employ the concept of using light and shadows to set the mood. Candles can convey everything from romance to eeriness. Candles can also be used to cast shadows. Lisa also relies on mirrors to bounce light around a room and to bring life to her tree-shrouded patio.
When decorating for a Halloween or harvest party, Lisa recommends that you “shop” your home and garden for items such as candlesticks, feathers, vintage items, foliage, statuary, etc. She also likes to fill glass containers with strings of battery-operated lights.
“Smoke and mirrors” is another ploy she relies on. Last year, she found a discarded mirror along a roadside and retrieved it. She turned the find into an optical illusion, as she positioned a pumpkin (carved on both sides) in front of it. “Two pumpkins for the price of one!” was the result. The mirror also multitasks, as she uses it as a serving tray for entertaining. “Everything has to multitask when you live in a small house,” she reports.
Even the dormer window is decorated.
As for the pumpkins she hung on the front door and windows, Lisa explains the idea of cutting a pumpkin in half lengthwise occurred to her when she visited a Japanese Kabuki mask exhibit at a museum. “I’m looking at them and all of a sudden it occurred to me I could do the same thing with pumpkins,” she relates. She went home and experimented and voila, unique Halloween decorations emerged.
The bats that decorate a portion of the house represent nostalgia. She loved creating the bats as a child and enjoyed sharing the project with her now-adult niece and nephew. “They just bring back nice memories,” she says. Swags made from bittersweet and other natural elements provide the finishing touch. Lisa says the resulting décor pays homage to Halloween traditions, as well as the harvest aspect of decorating that Lancaster County has become known for.
The skeleton demonstrates how gels can take a simple decoration to another level. Here, Lisa added a blue gel to the light. The effect is doubly eerie, as the skeleton’s shadow is cast across the sidewalk.
Lisa likes the fact that people have made it a tradition to stop by and take in the decorations. “I think of it as my way of giving back to the community,” she says. Oh, and she was already contemplating her Halloween décor in mid-July. “I bought a giant owl to put in the dormer window,” she shares.
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