My quest to do more activities in October recently took me to Anoka, the Halloween Capital of the World, specifically the Anoka Halloween house decorating contest. The Anoka Halloween is a month-long celebration full of parades, costume contests, pumpkin carving, haunted houses, and more.
Like the Twin Cities Oktoberfest, the Anoka Halloween is something I’ve heard of before but never attended. Since there are so many different things going on I had to pick a place to start. This year I decided to check out the Anoka Halloween House Decorating Contest.
I was excited to see all the houses decorated for Halloween. However, I have to admit I really did not understand how massive the Anoka Halloween House Decorating Contest event is.
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The Anoka Halloween Houses are Mostly Interactive
When I first heard of the Anoka Halloween House Decorating Contest I pictured something similar to Christmas house decorating. Only with a Halloween theme. Black and orange lights, some skeletons placed around a picnic table, maybe some fog machines… basically I assumed you would drive by, maybe get out of the car, stand on the sidewalk admiring the view, then move on to the next house.
Man was I wrong! If you just try to drive by you will miss the majority of the decorations. You MUST park your car and walk around the yard. These Anoka Halloween contest houses are decorated to be INTERACTIVE. Some wrap around the house and into the backyard. Some have a haunted house-like feel in their garages. And the details will be missed if you stay on the sidewalk.
There were people in costume, selling candy and cider, elaborate villages with haunted BBQ stands, animatronic fortune tellers, and light displays. If you really want to appreciate the work and enjoy the Halloween fun, you NEED to spend time walking around. This brings me to my next myth…
The Anoka Halloween Decorated Houses are Close in Proximity but you Need Time to See Everything
As I mentioned above the house decorated for the Anoka Halloween decorating contest will take a lot of time if you want to fully enjoy and experience the event.
All of the houses are required per contest rules to be within a 5-mile radius of the Anoka City Hall. The Anoka Halloween website publishes the list of addresses the day before public viewing. If you map the houses out correctly you will not drive more than a mile or two from one stop to the next. Some houses we found were only 1-2 blocks apart.
Because I didn’t realize the Anoka Halloween decoration contest participants created such elaborate displays, I looked at the mapped-out route and thought we could cover all the houses in the 2-hour window published for public viewing. I actually thought we would be done in less than 2 hours.
I was shocked when 9:00 rolled around and we had only seen 7 of the 14 houses I had mapped. Yes, we only saw half my list before 9:00!
The Anoka Halloween Decorating Contest Public Viewing is Only 2 Days
I never would have thought two days was not enough time to see the houses. This year there were 12 official houses included in the contest judging. The Anoka Halloween website however does publish additional houses they deem decorated enough to make it worth your time to stop. This year there were 9 additional houses. I included 2 in my mapped route because they were close to a judged house and would not require much extra time. So total I mapped out 14 of the possible 21 houses. As I mentioned before we only saw 7 in one night.
When planning for the Anoka Halloween decorating contest participant locations, make sure you not only plan enough time but you may also need to plan for both days. I’d recommend planning to hit all of the judged addresses and add in the other houses if they fit in easily to your mapped path.
Find an Efficient Route to Reduce Travel Time
I used Mapquest to determine the most efficient route for my needs. Yes, you read that right, Mapquest. Who else didn’t know that site even existed anymore??? I googled multiple address route planning and Mapquest showed up. Who knew?
The Anoka Halloween website lists the judged houses in a specific order to make a loop around Anoka City Hall. This makes sense in some ways but I moved things around a bit to not only add the 2 extra addresses but also move the addresses so we would end closer to home vs ending where we started.
Some Houses are Family Friendly
As I stated in my post about Not-So-Scary Halloween Movies, the definition of “Scary” is relative. What one person finds scary another person does not. There is no easy way to find common ground. I am a self-proclaimed chicken so if I don’t think something is scary it’s probably fairly safe to assume it’s not overly scary.
The Anoka Halloween decorating contest address list does have an indicator for family-friendly addresses. I don’t know what criteria they use but I found most of the houses we visited would not be considered scary by my definition. Now all of this what is scary and what is not is based on the assumption you are not scared of things like clowns. I’m not but there were a lot of clowns used in the decorations.
And Some Houses are Scary
In my opinion, the only houses that would fall into my definition of scary are places where someone jumped out at you. Or mechanical figures triggered by your movement vs on a timer or always on. The scare factor is the unexpected movement and noise not so much what you are looking at.
Since there are a lot of animatronics used, and the fact this is all done after dark, it can be hard to tell the difference between a human standing still and a machine not yet activated. There was one house where I saw what I thought was a very still human so I just decided to enjoy the decorations from outside the fence.
Should you Add the Anoka Halloween Decorating Contest to your Halloween Plans?
This is a wholehearted YES!!! I was amazed by how creative some of these homeowners are and how much time and effort they put into these displays. They truly love Halloween and it shows in the way they decorate.
Not in the Anoka area? What other cities go all out for Halloween?
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