Jax and I have been tossing around ideas on how to decorate her Super House for the Halloween dinner party. We are looking for elements that create the desired atmosphere, but are easy on the pocketbook. We want the house to look unfurbished antebellum, very post-civil war. Or as true southerners call it, The War of Northern Aggression. That’s war with two syllables, pronounced “woa-arh.”

*Beep* That was a joke. It was only a joke. If it had been a real case of ignorance, you would have been instructed to link to FOX News. *Beep*

I’m referring to the kind of home you might have stumbled upon during the Reconstruction.* High on our list of decorate trappings are:

  • Wrought iron candle sticks (because I own a number of them)
  • Hanging Spanish moss (if we want to bring the outside in)
  • Faux magnolias (because we can borrow them)

This is not my fabric, but it represents the colors we might employ, as well as a common brocade pattern.

Other items that might “goth” up the place:

  • Rich colored or opulent fabrics, maybe hanging over the seating (I have some somewhere)
  • Stained lace draped here and there, maybe as a table cloth
  • Fringed draping over lamps (so long as we don’t repeat the “fire incident of 2003” or the “oh crap, not again incident of 2004”) [Note to princesses: Do not hang tissue paper banners near an open flame.]
  • Fringed draping over the windows
  • Candelabras

This is not my Catrina doll (yet), but mine are similar.

Another possible flourish, a Day of the Dead alter (because I have a budding collection of Catrina dolls). I am also tempted to burn a carpet bag in effigy, but that will surely violate the “no fire” rule (and Jax’s Super Spouse would not support such a violation).

On a more serious note, an element that will be both decorative and symbolic will be the Ancestor Chair. This is a practice where a setting is placed in honor of loved ones lost. This is not just a pagan practice; it is practiced by others who partake in ancestor “worship,” including areas in Mexico and South America. Jax will expound on this topic later this week.

Do you have any other suggestions? We’d love to hear them!

*I am referring to the first Reconstruction, post-civil war (1865-1877). You might be interested in an emerging literature that considers post-Hurricane Katrina to be a third reconstruction in the south (the second during the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1980)).