My daughter took it upon herself to decorate our building, an 8-unit limestone, with handmade Halloween decorations.

The first week of October, she made numerous drawings — wonderful ghouls, howling dogs, witches, and devils — and taped them on the walls of  the public hallway.

Earlier this week at Little Things, we found a soft Dracula candy holder she couldn’t live without. I picked up some candy corn and Halloween signs at Save-on-Fifth. And the Food Coop had some of the most beautifully patterned gourds I have ever seen.

Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.  (that’s the sound of an old fashioned cash register).

Last night, everything came together: we made a make-shift table out of grocery boxes and used a sparkly silver fabric as a tablecloth. We put it in the hallway by our front door and filled Dracula with candy corn and M&Ms, and little plastic pumpkins.

Voila. I think we’re done. For now.

The sweet sweetness of the candy corn is already getting to me. The chaps for my daughter’s cowgirl costume are at the dry cleaners getting hemmed. My son hasn’t even mentioned his pirate costume (I guess at 14 you don’t need to involve your parents anymore). We’ve got a heinously busy weekend planned.

Take a deep breath and get ready for Halloween.