Facebook map sets path to Halloween fun around the county

ARLINGTON — Michael Myers. Carrie White. Freddy Krueger. Winifred Sanderson. Samhain.

Get spooked by these Halloween movie characters and more with Brandi Smith’s map for Halloween trick-or-treating and spooky decorations this year.

Smith, 31, of Arlington, is again curating a Halloween map of Snohomish County. She is sharing the Google map on Facebook via a Halloween Trick-or-Treat Map event scheduled Oct. 31.

More than 1,200 fans have already marked that they’re “interested” or “going” to the Facebook event.

So far, Smith has added 499 home addresses to the map. If you want to submit your address, there’s still time. Smith will continue to add to the map through Oct. 30.

This is not Smith’s first holiday map. She also made one for Halloween and Christmas via Facebook last year.

The Halloween map features where to trick-or-treat and/or see spooky decorations, as well as Halloween events like pumpkin patches, haunted houses and trunk-or-treats, where candy is dispensed from car trunks.

“It was supposed to be just for Arlington, but then I was asked to add a lot of Marysville, Stanwood and Lake Stevens addresses to the map,” Smith said. “This year, I’ve expanded it to all of Snohomish County, since that’s what we did for the Christmas map last year.”

Her Christmas map of Snohomish County featured where to drive by to see residential decorations, large and small, plus some holiday events.

The Halloween map is meant to help families plan out a trick-or-treat route that follows COVID-19 health and safety guidelines.

Most of the addresses pinpointed on this year’s Halloween map so far are in Arlington, Marysville, Lake Stevens, Snohomish and Everett.

Smith’s goal is to surpass the number of addresses she shared for Christmas. She had 647 addresses pinpointed on the map with Christmas lights and decorations last year.

Smith’s safety tips: Drive from neighborhood to neighborhood when trick-or-treating so that you avoid passing too many trick-or-treaters on the sidewalks. Send your candy down a shoot or set it up on a table by the door. Sanitize your hands in between stops. Wear a mask that protects against COVID-19, in addition to the one that goes with your costume.

“Halloween last year was especially fun,” she said. “Because I was on the candy shoot, I kept hearing (from down the stairs), ‘Oh, I think this is the lady who made the map.’”

A number of fans on Facebook have expressed how much they are looking forward to trick-or-treating.

Janell Hunnicutt, of Snohomish, loves the idea of the Halloween map.

The Hunnicut house is on the map. Go there for Llamaween, which is Halloween with the Llama Lady and her four llamas. Jamie Jones brings her llamas in costume to the Hunnicutt house and puts them in a pen strung with lights for trick-or-treaters. This year, the llamas will be dressed up as farmers, a scarecrow and a crow. Jones, herself, will wear a llama costume.

“I would tell the children, ‘You know, there is candy over there,’ but most of them were so fascinated with the llamas,” Hunnicutt said, with a laugh.

Hunnicutt will be dressed up as Miss Havisham from Dickens’ “Great Expectations,” the 1861 novel and 1998 film. She’s planning to hand out more than just candy. If you sing her a song or tell her something good, she’ll give you a quarter.

Theresa Ramey, of Marysville, is another fan of Smith’s map.

The Ramey house is also on the map. Theirs features the Marysville Reaper, which has 511 fans on Facebook. The 18-foot-tall reaper with a following has eyes that light up and the lantern he’s holding glows.

Ramey found the former Greenwood Reaper on Craigslist. He was renamed with the move to Marysville 10 years ago. Since that purchase, the Ramsey household has added a graveyard, skeletons, a spider in a web, witches, a coffin and an anamatronic headless horseman. When it gets closer to Halloween, on the weekends they turn on a fog machine, spooky sounds soundtrack and a projected lightning storm.

Ramey will dress up as Winifred Sanderson from 1993’s “Hocus Pocus.” She’s a fan of the Disney movie starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy.

“I was her before they even started selling the costumes in the stores,” she said. “Nobody had it when I wanted to do it, so I made it myself. I’m not a seamstress or anything, but it turned out OK.”

Of course, the Smith house is on this year’s map. Their decorations include a graveyard, inflatable haunted house, a grim reaper, spiders, bats, animatronic coffins, a fog machine and, new this year, the ferryman of the dead.

Her dad, John Morrison, will be Michael Myers from 1978’s “Halloween,” her husband, Michael Smith, will dress up as Freddy Krueger from 1984’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” her mom, Noel Morrison, will portray Carrie White from 1976’s “Carrie” and Brandi will be Sam, or Samhain, from 2007’s “Trick r Treat.”

“We go pretty crazy for Halloween, more so than even Christmas,” she said. “We have some Halloween decorations that stay up (in the house) year-round.”

In addition to adding to the Halloween map, Smith is counting down the days until Halloween on the event page.

Pandemic or not, Smith said the Halloween Trick-or-Treat and Christmas Light maps will be posted to Facebook yearly.

Do you have Halloween decorations worth a drive by?

Submit your home address via forms.gle/saDuFtcHX1Fotxzc9 or send a message to Brandi Jean Smith on Facebook.

Check out the Halloween Trick-or-Treat Map Facebook event at fb.me/e/d7FBMcYV5.

Sara Bruestle: 425-339-3046; sbruestle@heraldnet.com; @sarabruestle.