Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Halloween in Minnesota, yesterday & today October 31, 2025

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
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One of several scary characters positioned in a residential yard near downtown Waterville. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, my friends!

For sale at The Barn craft sale in September in Cannon City. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2025)

If I was a kid, I’d be super excited about putting on my costume, grabbing my candy collecting bucket or bag and heading out to trick-or-treat. But, since I’m an adult, there will be none of that, only a quiet evening at home. I didn’t even buy candy to hand out since the number of trick-or-treaters to our house sometimes numbers zero. Plus, the cost of candy is too high.

Thrift shops, like the Salvation Army in Red Wing, are good sources for Halloween costumes. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

But my grandkids, ages nine months, six and nine, will join countless costumed kids canvasing neighborhoods for treats. Izzy is dressing as Pikachu, Isaac as Numberblock Six and baby Everett as a dragon. Not that a baby can eat candy, but, well, his parents are pretty excited about their son’s first Halloween. I remember our oldest daughter’s first Halloween costumed as an angel. And I remember my childhood Halloweens in rural Minnesota, especially the year I dressed as a gypsy.

In Waterville, warnings in a neighborhood Halloween display. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

I remember Mom dropping me and my siblings off in my hometown of Vesta, population around 360, to collect goodies. This wasn’t necessarily ring the doorbell or knock, then grab and go. Sometimes we stepped inside to show off our costumes and sign a guestbook before being given our candy. Or, in the case of Great Aunt Gertie, a homemade popcorn ball, which was quite capable of causing a chipped tooth. When we were done gathering treats, we went to Grandma’s house where Mom picked us up for the short ride back to the farm.

The entrance to Coy and Kathy Lane’s Haunted Mini-Golf interactive Halloween display at 234 First Avenue Southwest in Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

One aspect absent from my childhood Halloweens were yards full of spooky decorations. Today they are everywhere. My neighbors up the street, Coy and Kathy Lane, create a themed display in their yard that is open from 10 a.m.- 9 p.m. the entire month of October. This year they built a haunted mini golf course. It’s impressive. Sound, lights and action make this a fully-immersive experience created by a couple who clearly love Halloween. They’ll be handing out full-sized candy bars on Halloween, the final date the display is open to the public…until next October.

A Halloween display on a front porch in small town Nerstrand. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

All around Faribault and neighboring communities, inflatables and other factory-made decorations have popped up in yards. Cats. Frankenstein. Skeletons. Witches. And on and on.

As much as I dislike creepy dolls, I posed with this one at Coy and Kathy Lane’s haunted mini golf course. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo by Randy Helbling, October 2025)

But the single freakiest Halloween decorations for me personally are the dolls. I can’t quite put my finger on why they creep me out other than that they do. My neighbors have an entire family of creepy dolls circling one hole in their mini golf course. I posed with one of them while Randy took a photo. We were there with our two oldest grandchildren during daylight hours, which likely explains why all of us were more entertained than scared.

I spotted this creepy doll in a storefront window in Montgomery, Minnesota. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

Now had a mouse been running around or a bat flying about, I would have fled the Halloween scene, snap, just like that.

My favorite hole at the Lane Halloween display features clowns. And, yes, some move. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)

TELL ME: What are you doing for Halloween? Also, I’d love to hear a Halloween memory or story. Please share.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

No candy at my house & the scary of Halloween (& life) October 31, 2023

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:00 AM
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Many facets of Halloween are depicted in this quilt, “Olde Salem Black Hat Society,” pieced by Anita Johnson and quilted by Therese Dominas. It was displayed at the Rice County Piecemakers Fall Splendor Quilt Show in September. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2023)

FOR THE FIRST TIME in decades, I haven’t purchased candy to give to trick-or-treaters. It’s not that I’m a meanie. Rather, we have so few kids come to our house that it simply is not worth even flicking on the outdoor light. The candy I buy each Halloween typically ends up consumed by us. And we don’t need it.

Photographed outside Audre’s Attic in Lonsdale. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

Plus, some 15 area businesses, organizations, churches and schools are holding Halloween-themed parties for kids, enough to fill any kid’s candy quota for the year.

Pumpkins painted by Cindy are for sale at my local Hy-Vee grocery store. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

If you’re protesting, “but, Audrey,” I offer one more reason. Cost. Candy is expensive, especially the mini chocolate candy bars I choose. (Hey, I don’t like gummies or suckers or Tootsie Rolls.) Randy and I are living on a retirement budget. And we all know how costs have risen on everything. It’s a scary time to retire.

I spotted this cute skull rock and two other Halloween-themed painted rocks on steps at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

I find the loss in investments, the price of groceries, the childish behavior in DC, the horror unfolding in our country and around the world much scarier than anything Halloween-related.

Original Gothic art for sale at Something for All Consignment/Thrift Store in Lonsdale. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

The scary of Halloween rates as fun fright. And maybe that’s what we all need right now—scary diversions not based in reality.

This face in a window at the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf creeps me out for some reason. I have no idea who she is, but I expect no one scary, except to me. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

If a lounging skeleton, a swaying ghost, a face in a window, Gothic art or whatever can divert thoughts from truth, then good. For a moment or more, the mind has managed an escape.

A skeleton relaxes in a Minnesota Vikings chair at my local Hy-Vee store. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2023)

So Halloween evening, I will escape into When Books Went to War—The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II. I’m only pages into this nonfiction book, but already the burning of books by the Nazis is scaring me. The book ties nicely with The Librarian of Burned Books, a novel I read a few weeks ago. If a trick-or-treater rings my doorbell, I won’t answer. My mind will be elsewhere, plus I will have nothing sweet to offer…except a handful of chocolate chips.

© Copyright 2023 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Halloween 2020 recap November 2, 2020

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 12:53 AM
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The grandkids, with their parents, getting ready to go trick-or-treating.

I ADMIT THAT WHEN I LEARNED my young grandchildren were going trick-or-treating, I was concerned. The CDC labeled the door-to-door tradition to be high risk during this global pandemic. Yet, I knew my daughter and her husband would be careful, as I expected others in their suburban Minnesota neighborhood would be. And that’s exactly how Halloween played out.

Isaac peeks out the front door side window before he leaves for trick-or-treating.
Setting a festive mood on the front porch…
Heading into the neighborhood early Saturday evening to trick-or-treat.

As I stayed behind to replenish the individually bagged candy and stickers and the glo-sticks arranged on an unattended table on the front porch, the rest—Isabelle as Thomas the Tank Engine, Isaac as a dinosaur, Randy as a divided Minnesota, and the parents as themselves, warmly dressed Minnesotans—set out to gather treats.

The candy table positioned outside the front door on the porch.
A Halloween garland visible through the front windows.
Spider web art created by my daughter and granddaughter and positioned in a front window (because the wind was too strong to place the cardboard piece outdoors).

I settled on the couch with the newspaper, occasionally hearing voices outside the front door. Then I’d wait a few minutes, until I knew the trick-or-treaters and their parents were gone, before stepping out to restock.

Isaac discovered that if he held his blinking lights treat bag next to something, the light would reflect. This fascinated him.

Eventually, the cold, fierce wind drew my family back to the house, where Isaac was more interested in his light-up candy bag than the candy. The kids each got one treat before we left and they transitioned toward bed.

Earlier, Randy and I sat with the kids and frosted and decorated homemade carrot cupcakes I baked the previous day. Isaac, at 22 months, was more interested in slicing the cupcakes with his child-sized knife. Izzy, 4, struggled with the thick frosting (note to self: next time make homemade cream cheese frosting), but managed the sprinkles quite well. When she later ate a cupcake overloaded with black sugar, her tongue turned black and black ringed her mouth. Coal residue from Thomas the Tank Engine, perhaps?

Chalk art on the driveway.

All in all, it was a fun Halloween. The kids were happy. The grandparents were happy to spend time with the grandchildren. And the parents, and the neighborhood, managed Halloween in a safe way, with all treats set outside and social distancing followed.

Randy noted one other difference. Trick-or-treating, without doorbell ringing and interaction, simply did not feel the same. He’s right. But this year, health and safety mattered more than tradition.

© Copyright 2020 Audrey Kletscher Helbling