Why I Oughta...

It is no secret that I have a soft spot for two holiday-related items that are, umm, not super cool.  The first is Christmas Village structures .  Have you met Mantleburg ?  The other?  Holiday-themed inflatables .  Most recently, I've covered how we picked up this blinking eye owl Halloween inflatable .  And I've posted some photos and videos of other Christmas and Halloween inflatables at Menards over the years.  I even have a playlist on my YouTube Channel showing some of these Menards inflatables. The spark for this whole thing around inflatables can be traced back to this post in December of 2013 .  That's when I finally caved and bought our first inflatable .  You'll note that the Christmas of 2013 lines up with the Babe growing up and having some holiday-related awareness.  She and now her sister and brother have certainly influenced my purchase behavior. And, to be fair, I think Nat isn't sold on them.  Scratch that....I *know* she isn't sold o

The team at the Bolingbrook Menards has begun to transition away from Summer/camping/back-to-school in the seasonal section to the best part of the year:  early Halloween - which gives way to early Christmas.  That means they have inflatables, window clings, a small amount of generic "fall" stuff (you know...it says things like 'give thanks' and what-have-you) and their spooky village.   Here, below, you can see some of the inflatables they have this year.  They're also adding some non-inflatable "creatures".  Dragons and such that are meant for the front yard and have some motorized movements, but not inflatable.    This row of inflatables features just one licensed Halloween inflatable:  a Frankenstein Minion halloween inflatable.  The rest are Menards house-brand, something called "Pumpkin Hallow".  They have this skeleton popping out of a jack-o-lantern, the dragon (you can see part of him on the right) and something they call "4'

Last year, it was the kaleidoscope effects inside the inflatables.  This year, there's something new:  fuzzy material like on this inflatable Teddy Bear that they're selling at Menards inside of the Enchanted Forest that they've set up for Christmas.  This one is retailing for $99.99, but is the only one that has this fuzz on it.  I really liked it and the Bird was all over this one.  She kept saying "he's so cuuuuute!" Have to wonder how this will stand up to the elements?  We seem to be able to get about four to five years out of our inflatables, depending on their size.  Between the motors running out (we sometimes use times, but a lot of time, we just keep them up all day and night long!) or the sun's UV rays fading the colors right out, we seem to be able to amortize the cost across four seasons at a minimum.  Looking at it that way, this one costs about $25/season.   The first year of inflatables like this never seem to last long in stock, so

Or...at least with some ridiculous inflatables on the front porch.  For record-keeping purposes, here's the annual (or some-what-annual) photo of our house decorated for Halloween.  You can see the Big Pumpkin (or "Big Pump" as the kids call him) along with Frankenstein on our front porch.  You'll also note that the mums at the bottom of the steps are the very same ones I 'tied up' with my pro-tip earlier this fall .  There are also a couple of cinderella pumpkins stashed on the stairs near the right railing that you can - if you look closely - see peeking out.  This is the first holiday in our #newoldfarmhouse, so we're starting from scratch decorations-wise.  We've come a long way from last year when we were living in Equation Boy/Man and Vic's house (thanks to their generosity!).  Here's a photo from last year that shows the decorations .  Frankenstein is the only survivor from this whole setup!   To be fair, the line of pumpkin infla

I've covered Halloween inflatables here on the blog over the years - but they've mostly been about Menards.  Like this Blinking Owl from a few years back .  Or these two big inflatables that Nat allows me to put on the porch for a few weeks the past two years.   This year Menards has gone all-in on Jack Skellington, Sally and Oogie Boogie from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'. But, I've been going to Home Depot a little bit more regularly than I was in the past and discovered their Halloween section this season and am delighted (and surprised) by all the Beetlejuice stuff there.  The biggest piece in the whole section is this inflatable, animated Sand Worm that you can see in the photo above. The center-most worm moves - and you can see it in this brief video below: That's not the only Beetlejuice item - they also have another giant Sand Worm, but this time, it has a screen on the face of it to broadcast movies.  They claim to use 'projection

This past weekend marked the turning of the Menards seasonal store inventory over from Summer/back-to-school to Halloween stuff.  And it is the beginning of the most wonderful time of the year!  I've chronicled this transition to Halloween in years past including 2016 here .   2015 here .  And 2012 is here . Now that we've moved to Downers Grove, we don't have a Menards super close any longer - but we have two (Bolingbrook and Glendale Heights) that are the same 15 or 20 minute drive away.  The photo I took above is from Bolingbrook - which is an older-style store.  But their Halloween section is pretty robust and goes well beyond this Halloween Village set-up from Lemax.  Blowmolds and inflatables?  They have a bunch of them including a blinking-eye owl that I have my eye on.   Our new neighbors are going to love the Inflatable City, aren't they?  In Elmhurst, Nat was totally fine with inflatables in the backyard, but drew the line at the front of the house.  Gues

Posting this here for diary-keeping purposes.  That's Vic's/Equation Boy/Man's house all doll'd up with inflatables and pumpkins and what-have-yous on Halloween 2016. Look who is missing from last year . I love me some inflatables despite Nat not being all over them (I think she prefers them in the backyard!) and brought them out front for the big day last week. Here's a look at our home on Halloween back in 2013 .

This morning, we hit up the local Menards to look over their Christmas stuff and I was surprised that A LOT of it was already gone.  Totally picked over.  Like...almost ALL of the inflatables were gone.  And most of the blowmolds.  I guess that's what happens when you put it out in October? But, there were a bunch of different of these Tinsel-y cloth decorations.  This one above is a pretty cute Santa.  He's 110 bucks, though!  So, he didn't end up in our cart.  This seems to be an emerging place of compromise in the great Christmas decorations battle.  Not as crazy as a huge inflatable but a little bit of personality.  The prices on these things will likely come down in the next few years like they've done on inflatables and when it does?  We'll pounce!

Just yesterday, I posted another photo of Menards Halloween setup with two of the kids and I've already covered a few of the Spooky Town structures .  But, there's a few things that we've bought already that have me giddy with Halloween excitement.  I'll share the bigger things in another post, but first, check out the newest inflatable to our crew: He blinks!?! Yeah.  And this one is definitely not a budget buster and there was just one box remaining on the shelves, so I *had* to buy it, right?  It remains to be seen where Nat will allow me to put up the inflatables at the #newoldfarmhouse.  In year's past, we've always kept most of our holiday-related freakiness (aka inflatables!) in the backyard.  This one is too cool to be hidden from the public, right? And, say what you want about Halloween Creep , but the fact that this was the last one of these things at Menards tells me that consumers are ok with Halloween stuff despite it being August.

Just placing this photo here as a reminder to myself this fall when I try to drag all the Christmas stuff out of our crawlspace.  This year, I put away 10 tubs, the advent box, the nativity box and 2 other small boxes on the top right.   Now I'll have a reference photo to understand if I have everything out for the 2015 Christmas season. The reason for this is that this fall, I pulled out ALL of the tubs that had *some* Christmas stuff in them.  There was like 22 tubs total.  Lots of them were half filled with stuff and a bunch of them had things in the bottom of the tubs that we stopped using at Christmas (like old lights, plastic ornaments, old tree skirts, etc). This year, when re-packing our stuff up in January, I consolidated everything into these slightly smaller tubs.  (That was the other problem...last year, we were using lots of big tubs - you know the kind - the ones that you have to spread your arms really far apart to carry them).  These are easy to handle, can

At the beginning of the month, I posted a couple of photos of the beginning of Menards Christmas setup at their Bolingbrook store.  The 'Enchanted Forest" is something that I look forward to every year as they always have some new items to check out.  Anybody who has been in a big box store during the holidays the past few years will attest that there is a HUGE market for inflatable outdoor decorations.  I've succumbed to the inflatable trend and we have a couple of BIG ones we put out at Halloween .   But, Menards is also holding strong with the blowmold market.  They put out holiday blowmolds for Halloween - and I've covered them here on the blog before - and looking at the analytics of this site, that's a popular post, so plenty of people are looking for Halloween Blowmolds from Menards.   There's more Halloween blowmolds in this post from 2011 , too.    They also do quite a bit of Christmas blowmolds as part of their Enchanted Forest incl

Menards has seemingly gone BIG on Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas movie with Jack Skellington, Sally, Oogie Boogie and even Zero items across their line.  From inflatables to stuffed plush, the licensing deal that they've struck with Disney appears to be their signature character line this Fall.  In the photo above, you see three lighted pumpkins:  Sally, Jack Skellington and Oogie Boogie all have a built-in LED light that lights up their interiors.  They're cute and I could see the Jack or Oogie Boogie one on the porch.  The Sally one is teal colored and I wonder if it might become part of the trend/used as an identifier of an allergy-free house that the whole movement that the 'Teal Pumpkin Project' has delivered in most neighborhoods.  Could be a nice shortcut for some folks? Below is another look at a different set of these same Nightmare Before Christmas characters, but instead of 12" to 16" versions, these are tiny ones - like the size

After resisting the purchase of seasonal inflatbles for our yard, I finally caved.  You can see the big guy is now taking up residence in my garden - right outside of our dining room window.  After a nap this weekend, the Bird came down and couldn't have been happier to see him. Am I embarrassed by finally caving to these ridiculous things?  Kind of.  But, that smile on her face more than makes up for it.  In fact, I went out and doubled-down.  More on that later this week!

I took the Babe to Menards this morning and guess what I found?  The entire seasonal section has been overtaken by Halloween.  Yes...six+ weeks out.  And...you know what else?  I love it.  I love it so much.  And...I love that right after this, Christmas - and Menard's Enchanted Forest of Christmas delights will be up by November 1st.  All those folks who hate "Christmas Creep" probably hate this "Halloween Creep", but I'm not one of them.  In fact...I think were going to have to step up our game with these blowmolds.  I like that they're kind of old-fashioned - in a '1970's old-fashioned' sense.  Especially with inflatables ruling the front lawns of so many Americans these days, these things harken back to years ago when folks were decorating their lawns on Bungalow row in the city and 'burbs. The witch one on the right is particularly cute.  There's Dracula too, but I didn't include him in the photo.  I'll have to try t

Look what we found when we went to the newish Menards in Melrose Park this past weekend:  Christmas has exploded in the patio furniture section with inflatables, blowmolds and some trees.  This isn't the earliest that Menards has done Christmas; back in 2011 I posted a photo back in September with the full 'Enchanted Forest' setup . The Halloween stuff kinda looked shabby, which is super weird because we're still close to four weeks away.  We're planning a "Great Pumpkin" party for the King of the Ball Tossers, so I think a few visits to try to grab some clearance items might be in the offing.

It seems like Menards Halloween has come back this year.  After a down year (at least it appeared to me to be 'down' and likely due to COVID + Supply Chain issues), it appeared that - on our visit this month - they had TONS of new stuff.  This post is going up in late August, but our visit was on Saturday, August 13th, so they had all of their stuff up mid-August.  I've covered this in the past - here's last year .  Below is a look at their Halloween village.  Of note, they've TOTALLY phased out all Lemax Village buildings and are now showing their own house brand of Pumpkin Hollow Halloween buildings and structures.  Menards always has a good set of holiday inflatables and this year they're showing a new (to me) Disney licensed Halloween inflatable featuring the three Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus (and soon... Hocus Pocus 2 ).  It is just five feet wide, but costs more than $100.  Dang that Disney license.   Menards is also selling a couple of tabletop Hal

We made our way to the happiest place on earth this weekend - Menards - and found their entire Halloween display up and running.  One thing I noted is that they've expanded their blowmold collection.  It seemed like they downsized their inflatables at the same time. See those pumpkins on the second shelf?  The two on the right (grey and white) have a glitter on them. They're pretty neat.  The cute ghost on the bottom and the witch on the top are the same ones they had last year.  They did, however add some black lawn flamingos.  See them on the top right in the boxes? I still don't think we'll be getting any blowmolds this year, but I hope to add to our yard display, though!  Those details to come!

(that title is - as they say - tongue in cheek.) Nat and I stopped by a Lowe's this weekend to look for a new fridge for the basement and we came across a HUGE Christmas section.  They had more inflatables than Menards by a large measure.  And look at what I found?  A pretty good selection of what looks like Lemax Christmas Village buildings.  But they're not Lemax?  They're something called "Carole Towne Collection".  But turning the box over unveils some details.  They are indeed Lemax Village buildings.  Just sold by Lowes. What does this mean for Mantleburg?  Not sure just yet.

The calendar may read September, but the folks at Menards already have Christmas on their mind. Seriously.   They have their Christmas stuff up already!  Well...most of it.  The "Enchanted Forest" isn't up yet because the Halloween inflatables are still up.  But, all the lights and lawn items for Christmas - as you can see - are on the shelves. And think we were excited?  Just look at the Bird running up and down the aisles celebrating Christmas coming soon.   Last year, the Menards in Melrose Park put up their Christmas stuff in early October , so they're a bit ahead of where they were last year.  But, this isn't the earliest sighting of Christmas stuff at Menards on record.   Here, back in 2011, I posted a photo of the Babe with holiday blow molds on September 17th . Alas, we didn't buy anything from the Christmas section, but we *did* buy a few Halloween items that they still have displayed. Christmas creep is real and I, for one, welcome it.

Almost one year ago to the day, I posted a photo of Menards Christmas Creep showing up at the Melrose Park location .  I remarked last year that they had most of their Christmas stuff up, but not the full 'Enchanted Forest' and I was surprised.  This year?  I'm no longer going to the Melrose Park location, but instead now head to Bolingbrook most often.  And that has the old store layout.  And that means that they still have the Halloween stuff up in the seasonal section, but they've converted a lot of the patio furniture area into Christmas decorations that you see above.   It is mostly lights, but there are a few blowmolds scattered around.  No inflatables, though.  I only had the King of the Ball Tossers with me and had him strapped into the cart, so there wasn't running around the aisles like there was last year .  Here's some photos of Menards Christmas last year . Here's a post from Menards Christmas 2015 .   And their Christmas Village fr