Jackie Hyland: Halloween decoration intervention

It's that time of year again ... Halloween! A time to pull out the spooky decorations and costumes and buy candy!

I have a confession to make: I am really not all that into Halloween. I don't know why.

I know I liked the holiday as a child growing up in New York. My mother always went to great lengths with our costumes and taking us out to trick or treat!

I think things changed for me when my family moved to Ireland.

Halloween is different in Europe, at least when I was a kid. It was more about bobbing for apples than decorations, dressing up and going door to door for candy.

That said, my kids LOVE Halloween, and therein lies the problem.

This year, I put a nice fall wreath up on the front door and nestled two fake pumpkins by the door. I was delighted, thinking it looked pretty!

My girls were horrified! They made fun of me and my décor! That's not enough I heard, look at all the neighbors' houses!

I took a look around and I saw some of my neighbors had gone all out with huge black scary spiders and spider webs draped from porches. Oh, and there were pumpkins of all shapes and sizes on porches and Halloween lights too!

When did Halloween get so glittery? I thought lights were reserved for Christmas! Oh, but there was more, I spotted ghosts hanging from trees and even a group of ghosts holding hands around a tree!

Yikes! I clearly saw why my girls were embarrassed. An intervention was needed and fast. So I went to Michaels, anxiously looking for spiders, anything to spook up my house. Alas, everything was sold out.

I went to Target where the best decorations were long gone. So I grabbed what was left: A spider web that lights up. I was so proud of myself. I brought it home and happily showed it off to my girls. That's it! One lame web, I heard. Oh well, it's better than nothing, I thought.

Now to hang it up! My husband immediately said he was not putting any nails anywhere on the porch! Oh boy, this was going to be a challenge! I managed to get the web to stick to the brick wall, trust me it took time, my girls took one look and said no one can see it there.

Sadly, since it went up on the brick wall, the lights were turned on twice! No one remembers to turn them on. All that running around and hard work for nothing!

I should have known. My two fake pumpkins and wreath were good enough.

Christmas is right around the corner and, hopefully, I will have a chance to redeem myself, I already have my Christmas wreaths ready to go!