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Lubberstedt shares her love for Halloween with the whole community
LAUREL — For most people, Oct. 31 is just another date on the calendar.
For Mari Lubberstedt, it’s a lifestyle.
Every fall, the Laurel woman transforms her quiet neighborhood into a cackling, glowing, shrieking celebration of all things spooky. Her yard bursts with skeletons and spider webs, grinning clowns, groaning zombies and more goblins than you can shake a broomstick at.
“I honestly don’t know how many decorations I have anymore,” Lubberstedt said with a laugh. “I just keep adding to it every year.”
She does know how many hours she’s spent this season — 86 and counting. One recent Saturday alone, her smartwatch proudly reported 36,000 steps. “That was a long day,” she said. “But a fun one.”
From a Few Zombies to Full-Blown Clown Town
Lubberstedt’s Halloween obsession began back in 2008, not long after her family moved to Laurel. Her first year featured a modest graveyard of zombies. Then came clowns — and before long, her yard had morphed into what locals now call “Clown Town.”
“It really kind of blew up around 2016 or ’17,” she said. “That’s when we went all-in with the clowns.”
A Family Tradition With Spooky Roots
Halloween runs deep in Lubberstedt’s family tree — perhaps rooted in the pumpkin patch of her grandmother’s imagination.
“My grandma loved Halloween and gave me my first decorations when I went off to college,” Lubberstedt said. “I just built on that.”
Her mom always decorated, too, though not to this extreme, and her dad loved scaring trick-or-treaters with homemade scenes — a tradition she proudly carries on.
For years, her creations were all homemade — PVC pipe, rebar and a dash of DIY magic. More recently, she’s added a few animatronics, though those can be temperamental.
“They’re kind of a pain,” she admitted. “If it’s raining or freezing, I have to bring them in.”
These days, she also uses two projectors — one for a chorus of singing pumpkins and another for her eerie spider tunnel. “Sometimes what’s in my head doesn’t quite match what comes out,” she said. “But that’s part of the fun.”
Screams, Giggles and Giving Back
The payoff comes on Halloween night, when more than 200 costumed kids parade through her haunted yard.
“The screams and the giggles — that’s the best part,” Lubberstedt said. “They scream, then they giggle, then they want to go through again.”
Neighbors start to worry if she hasn’t begun setting up by late September.
“People drive by asking if I’m still doing it,” she said. “Don’t worry — I’m always doing it.”
Beyond the decorations and delight, Halloween decorating became a welcome distraction during a difficult chapter in her family’s life, when her son, Trent, battled debilitating headaches.
“This is kind of my way of giving back,” Lubberstedt said. “Our community supported us so much when Trent was sick. I could never take donations for the display — it’s my thank-you to everyone.”
Each pumpkin lit, every cobweb strung, and every ghostly giggle echoing through Clown Town is a reminder that sometimes the best kind of magic isn’t spooky at all — it’s the joy that brings a community together.
