Joy in Jack-o-lanterns

While driving down Clinton Street in the month of October, you are sure to see a house with many extravagant Halloween decorations in its front yard. A tractor full of pumpkins, hay bales, and other fall and Halloween themed decorations fill Joan Bumpus’s yard every year.

Bumpus has been a resident of Stockbridge since 1953 and is notorious for decorating her iconic yard for Halloween and Christmas. The tradition began in 1973 when she started celebrating the upcoming holidays by decorating with her husband and children.

“I imagine we started out small, and then when we’d go through different towns we’d see decorations that we liked,” said Bumpus. “So we would bring it back and add it to our house.”

As her children grew older, Bumpus didn’t stop decorating. She and her late husband found joy in the small-town attraction her home had become during the holidays over the years.

“We have so many people that stop, and now at Halloween people will bring their kids and set them up on the pumpkin wagon and take pictures with them,” said Bumpus. “That’s why it’s worth it to do it, because we enjoy hearing from the people.” Bumpus’s house does attract a lot of attention. Compared to all of the other Halloween decorations neighboring her house, her display beckons many young trick-or-treaters and adults alike.

“She really puts a lot of effort and detail into her decorations. It’s just nice to see in the community,” said Kim Killinger. Bumpus has no plan to stop her tradition of decorating. She says she enjoys the reaction and the happiness the people of Stockbridge get from her decorations.

“I still decorate because people talk about the decorations when they see it,” said Bumpus. “So I just feel like, you’ve got to do it, because the people are looking.”

Imagine you are walking into a Halloween costume store with your five-yearold daughter, sister, or cousin. Your little girl has her heart set on dressing up as Katniss Everdeen, the strong, warrior protagonist of “The Hunger Games”. To your dismay, all you see are aisles and aisles filled to the brim with frilly pink dresses and costumes that should be normal for any gender but are highly sexualized: nurses, superheroes, cops, even nuns. You feel your heart break as your child tells you she will just dress as a princess, instead of the mighty hero she had her heart set on.

The objectification and sexualization of women’s Halloween costumes have only gotten worse over time. I decided to take a look inside of a Spirit Halloween, one of the biggest chain Halloween stores in the United States, and I was disgusted, yet not surprised at my findings. There were two cop costumes next to each other.

‘Lieutenant Misbehave’ and ‘Adult Police Officer Costume’. Can you guess which was men's and which was women’s? That is only one example.

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a woman choosing to wear a ‘sexy’ Halloween costume. If you choose to dress up as a ‘buccaneer beauty’ or