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Last weekend my husband and I braved the black hole known as our garage to look for our Halloween decorations. Buried in the piles of junk was a medium sized box containing all of our decorations.

Even though we love Halloween, we don't have a lot of decorations. We've only owned a house for three years, so we've tried to buy one or two new decorations each year. With our current financial situation, we couldn't afford fancy cackling witches or big foam tombstones. So this year we fell back on an easy, yet effective decoration: tree ghosts.

Little tree ghosts are very common decorations in our city. At night it's fun to see the hints of white from the trees as you drive down the street. They make no sounds, but silently flutter amongst the branches.

You can either buy tree ghosts or make them yourselves. Either way, you'll still have to put some work into it. The store-bought ghosts are circular pieces of thin white plastic, with black eyes painted on. There is a hole at the top to insert a string, and usually the string is included. You stuff the "head" of the ghost with newspaper, tissue paper, or cotton, tie off the head with a piece of string, then thread another string through the hole at the top and tie it on a tree branch.

But you don't have to spend the money on the ones in the store. These little ghosts can be made from white plastic grocery bags, too. Smooth out the plastic, cut out a circle with a 12" diameter, stuff the center and tie off the stuffing. Then poke a hole at the top of the head, thread a string through, and use a permanent marker to draw eyes and maybe a mouth on the ghost. Tie onto the tree, and you have your own homemade ghost!

No matter which way you choose to make the ghosts, kids love to help you stuff them. Cordy had a great time crushing newspaper into small balls, and then helped us hang them on the tree. The ghosts not only are fun decorations, they make a fun and quick activity for the entire family to join in on.

Check out Disney Family.com's group Halloween blog, The Ghoul's Guide, for more stories and tips.