Funny skeleton family entertains Raleigh neighbors
A fun way to fill the time and entertain the neighbors during the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a Halloween tradition for a creative Raleigh family.
With help from her kids, Avery and Ethan, Lindsay Jackson has dressed and posed skeletons in her front yard doing everyday, ordinary tasks -- every single day in October.
The display is called "Indiana Bones," and it even has its own Instagram account with more than 230 followers. There you will find more than 115 posts showing a family of skeletons vacuuming, voting, giving out flu shots, lifting weights, gardening, taking out the trash, playing on a slip-and-slide and more.
The family owns two full-size skeletons, a skeleton child, a skeleton dog and even a skeleton snake.
You will see the skeletons enjoying a spa day, working at a desk and sunbathing. It's all guaranteed to make you laugh.
Jackson and her kids use wooden stakes and twist ties to make the skeletons jump, twist, sit and stand.
"It's really hard to pose a skeleton -- gravity is not on my side," Jackson laughed. "But we want to put them in active situations people can see themselves in."
The funny skeleton scenes will get scarier leading up to Halloween -- but not too scary, because it's all meant to be fun for families.
Indiana Bones requires a lot of creativity, because Jackson's family has created a new scene every day in October for four years. It's easy to see the entire collection, because every pose is also posted on Instagram.
"In COVID-19 we spent a lot of time outside with the neighbors walking around ... this was a way to bring the community together and have everybody smile during a hard time," Jackson said.
Almost all the items used to pose Indiana Bones are recycled or used items from Jackson's household.
"These are found items we have in our house or items the kids outgrew that we were going to give away," Jackson said.
Some props were even items the family found on the side of the road, like a Wegmans grocery cart.
"We brought it home and did a scene with them going grocery shopping then we took it back to Wegmans -- so we felt good about doing a good deed," Jackson said.
Recently, a skeleton parent was feeding a baby in a high chair. Jackson said it is a nice way to say goodbye to items from her kids' younger years before donating them.
"That was our high chair we fed our children in when they were young," Jackson said. "We just try to use what we have."
Sometimes the displays are interactive, link a North Carolina State Fair exhibit that included a ring and bean bag toss. This year, people are encouraged to drop non-perishable items in a grocery cart for a food drive.
See all of Indiana Bones' poses on Instagram.
