In direct contrast with Thursday night’s Haunt the Halls in Yukon was Friday night’s Spooktacular Event at the Mustang Community Center.

Spooktacular featured somewhere around twenty different activities for kids to participate in, with everything from bowling with a giant inflatable ball (and pins) and a very-mini putt putt course to a rock climbing wall. For attempting each event, kids were rewarded somewhere between two and five pieces of candy. To put it in perspective, the kids left Haunt the Halls with about ten pieces of candy each (and it cost us a full bag to enter). Conversely, Spooktacular was free to enter and while I’m not sure how much candy each kid left with, Mason’s plastic bag physically split at the seams and burst open during our visit there.

The right hand side of the community center had been converted to a haunted house, courtesy of senior citizens. It was just the right level of scariness for the kids — creepy enough to make them cautious, but not too scary as to make them want to leave. The senior citizens seemed to be having a blast as well. We saw people in their seventies and eighties dressed up as skeletons, witches and ghosts. I saw one dressed up like an old woman, but quickly realized that she wasn’t in costume and was, in reality, just an old woman. Whoops.

The only downside, if there was one, was the large argument that took place just inside the foyer between some lady and one of the employees. From what we overheard (and it was hard not to) it sounded like a parents was upset because her child was excluded from working the event due to her costume, but the point of the argument was moot — it simply wasn’t the time or the place for a shouting match. Spooktacular had the Mustang Community Center bursting at the seams; just inside the entry way there were long lines of people shuffling north to south, south to north, east to west and west to east, with two ladies pointing fingers and shouting at one another right in the middle of it all. I heard over a dozen kids asking their parents what was going on.

Other than that, the night was fantastic. We missed this year’s event at the Yukon Community Center and Haunt the Halls was a bust, but Spooktacular more than made up for it. Next year we’ll hit both the Community Center events and skip the hall haunting. I’ve heard mixed reviews from this year’s Haunt the Zoo event — did anyone go?

The costumes have to make it one more night. Tonight is HALLOWEEN!!!