It may be hot, it may still be summer vacation, but Halloween season arrived on Wednesday in Corona del Mar as Roger’s Gardens unveiled the 2009 Halloween Shop to preferred customers.
More than 100 Halloween fans lined up as early as 3 p.m. — two hours before Roger’s Halloween store opened for the season. Store employees passed out bottled water, and a magician worked the lines, performing card tricks and discussing 19th Century magical tricks. The shoppers came from throughout Orange County and beyond, many coming for every one of the eleven years that the display has been in existence.
Some people in the crowd wore black and orange outfits; one woman had an elaborate necklace made of intertwined spiders.
“We come to buy, and we also come to get ideas,” said Sharron Trask, who was in line with her husband, Mark, of Huntington Beach. The couple’s friends said that when you look up the word “Halloween” in the dictionary, you see their picture. He works for a cemetery; she works for a coroner’s office. To them, Halloween is a huge holiday, one that gets them dressing up, decorating their house, and a trip to Roger’s starts it off.
Leanne Woodall of Newport Beach (Port Streets) was in line with her two kids. “We’re Halloweenies,” she said. Later, inside the shop, Woodwall was thrilled to find creepy clown pictures. “I collect clowns,” she said.
Roger’s Gardens creative director, Eric Corina, greeted each shopper, many of whom recognize him from the years of Halloween displays he’s put together.
This year’s display is based on a mysterious, turn-of-the-last-century mad scientist, who has a basement filled with magician’s supplies, laboratory supplies, card tricks and even a ventriloquist dummy that talks to passersby.
Shoppers crowded the rooms, filling their carts with fuzzy rats, snakes coiled to bite, faux magic wands, lenticular portraits that turned old-fashioned looking people into monsters. Friends separated, bumped into one another, compared notes.
“I’m looking low, where everyone is missing,” one woman said as she snapped up a basketful of large spiders that would clip or pin, like a corsage.
“I want to show you that globe,” one woman said to her friend. “Wait,” her friend said, “first I want to look at these spiderwebs.”
One woman said she thought the display could have been scarier. But most shoppers seemed thrilled.
Roger’s representatives have said that Halloween draws thousands of customers, second only to the Christmas holiday season.
The public opening of Mournful Morris and his Halloween Basement is 9 a.m. Friday. Roger’s Gardens is located at 2301 San Joaquin Hills Road. Call (949) 640-5800 for more information.
