My neighborhood, maybe yours too, has been overflowing with faux spider webs, crime scene tape and gravestone markers for a few weeks now.

Replicas of human skeletons have been routinely strewn upon lawns and compressors have been humming from behind neat rows of bushes to keep Frankenstein and giant pumpkin blowups inflated.

Besides enjoying the fall colors on the trees, it seems that a new Halloween home display crops up every day. Even during a fifteen-minute walk, there is a lot to look at.

Some scenes feature humor, like the poker game between bodies of bones, loosely gripping cans of a locally brewed IPA. Some pay homage to pop culture. Hasn’t everyone noticed Chucky, the serial killer of slasher movie fame, behind the closest school crossing sign?

My favorite decorated house last year was so popular, passing motorists pulled over and snapped pictures.

I don’t know if the scene was inspired by the TV show, The Walking Dead, or if just the thought of zombies taking over a town, house by house, stirred up the idea, but at least a dozen adult figures could be seen positioned at this house climbing up an exterior brick wall through an attic window and onto a side porch.

As I took my morning walk the other day,  I quickly realized I was standing in front of the same house that entertained a zombie invasion the previous year.

Covering the whole front of the house, the Grim Reaper was cloaked in a black, hooded robe. He was unmistakable; white, hollowed out skull with red glowing eyes and extra thin and long fingers, ready to pluck you by the shoulder and, ready or not, take you to the Other Side.

Oddly enough, rather than prompt me to sleep with a night light on, I came back to my intentional gratitude practice and my habit of mindful living.

Where did I go to see the best conceived and executed home-made Halloween decorations?  Of course, I decided to look where I found the greatest macabre delight last year.

The logic of this is so simple. If you want fried chicken, you go to Popeye’s or KFC.

Don’t kids practice this every October 31^st as they develop their own Trick ‘r Treat strategy for an optimal haul?

They prioritize stops at houses where they gave away the “good stuff” the previous year.  For some, that might be Kit Kat or Butterfinger bars. For many, Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups is the preferred candy for fall gluttony.

If you want to have a certain kind of experience, you go to where this urge was satisfied before.

This has become an automatic mindfulness practice. This is how “intentional gratitude” works.

I consider past experiences when I was filled with gratitude.

I consider the essential qualities of those experiences and I look for the core reasons why experiences featuring this attribute make my day. Then, I practice seeing how these qualities might be showing up in the moment.

I consider how I empower myself whenever I choose to place my attention on something that, per past experiences, makes me feel good.

This even works when developing a route to take in maximum creativity on a neighborhood trek to see Halloween decorations.

Knowing what to look for or where to look for something I can appreciate is no small thing.

Re-printed with permission.

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