By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

As Halloween approaches every year, Alabaster resident Leann Langley starts feeling excitement akin to a child on Christmas morning.

For the past 14 years, Langley and her husband have become well-known in the Wynlake subdivision and across Alabaster for their annual Halloween decorations and Oct. 31 party.

“It’s like my Christmas, I guess,” Langley said with a laugh. “I’m the biggest kid in the neighborhood.”

The family usually begins decorating for the holiday a couple of months in advance, and works to put out thousands of decorations in their yard and inside their house.

When all the decorations are out, more than 40 strands of lights line the front yard, large cat eyes peer at visitors as they approach the house and huge spider webs stretch from the roof to the ground.

Walking through the front door reveals a plethora of ceramic decorations, a Zultan figure and goblins. About 75 dishes of candy dot the tables throughout the house, which help serve the more than 350 young trick-or-treaters the Langleys usually see every Oct. 31.

“We are actually going to have an open house on Saturday night to let folks walk through and see everything before it gets crazy on Wednesday night,” Langley said.

Since the family has been decorating for Halloween for more than a decade now, Langley said her friends and neighbors start inquiring about the display as October approaches.

“I’ve collected all of these decorations, so I always want to put them to good use,” Langley said. “We’ve even seen the school bus stop in front of the house to let the kids look at it.”

On Halloween night, hundreds of local kids and their parents descend on the house for the Langleys’ annual Halloween party. During the party, kids get a chance to tour the house and collect candy from the dozens of dishes in nearly every room.

Langley said most kids start arriving at the house at about 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 31.

“Last year, the church closest to us started driving kids over to our house on a hayride,” Langley said with a laugh.