LEWISTON – It takes Tom Bellegarde three days to decorate for Halloween. The lighted graves, blow-up figures and faux-candelabra held by severed hands more than double his October electric bill.
The outdoor display at the corner of Bellegarde Avenue and Bellegarde Circle inspires dozens and dozens of slow, curious drive-bys every year, and the gore doesn’t stop at his front door.
The casual passerby won’t see the bloodied skull atop the refrigerator or the stump of zombie torso in the foyer.
Halloween’s not even his major holiday. Bellegarde really goes all out for Christmas. Those three homes near the intersection of Russell and Sabattus streets with 50,000 lights and tons of trees during the holidays?
That’s him.
In about one more month, it’ll be all Santas, sleigh bells and merriment. For now, it’s flickering lights, eerie undead and inflatable ghouls.
His decoration collection, neatly packed away in the off-season, takes up more than one room in his house.
Several pieces now out for Halloween are triggered by motion or sound to bleat or sing. Among the more unusual: a cat in his living room whose head does a 360-degree turn while making spitting noises.
“I turn most everything off, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to walk anywhere without something screaming at you,” Bellegarde said.
He grew up in the house he lives in and doesn’t remember his parents being excessive decorators. Awhile back, he started with Christmas knickknacks outside, adding a bit more each year, and about five years ago, he began giving the same treatment to Halloween.
Bellegarde makes an effort to change out his designs. He gets ideas all year long, “even if it’s in the middle of summer,” he said.
New this year to the outdoor Halloween menagerie: a pumpkin archway, a vampire sticking out of a coffin and a few skeletons poking up from the ground.
“If I had a real nice lawn, I might be a little fussier about digging into it,” Bellegarde said.
Some year, he’d like to fence in his little graveyard and build a cobweb arbor over the walkway to his front door.
Bellegarde said he likes to sit indoors and watch people’s reactions to the display. Sometimes, he’ll go outside and admire the setup along with everyone else.
“The kids love it. I get thanked so many times. People enjoy it. It’s my chance to be creative,” he said. “I do it just as much for me as anybody else.”
On Halloween night, his fog machine will come out, lending a creepy feel to his scene. The next day, the bones, inflatables and lights will come down. Christmas will make its decorative debut the Saturday after Thanksgiving, he hopes.
Know a collector we ought to feature? Contact Kathryn Skelton at 689-2844 or send e-mail to [email protected]
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