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HUGULEY — Since the year 2000, Kelly and Contessa Meacham have lived in a home off Veterans Memorial Parkway near the intersection with Phillips Road. For 21 years now, lots of local people have made it a point to drive by their home during the Halloween season to check out a new and creative display their have in their front yard.

It seems to get a little better with each passing year.

“We love the Halloween season, and the fun that always comes with it,” Kelly said. “We plan our new display months ahead of Halloween. We always get one together with readily available parts, many times already there in our barn. In past years, we have done witches, skeletons sitting in the yard and scarecrow pumpkins. One year, we had scarecrow pumpkins playing football, another year we had a crashed UFO made from a satellite dish someone had thrown away. The next year we had an ambulance and EMS crew attending to aliens who were injured in the crash.”

The Meachams outdid themselves this year. They had a pirate ship complete with a skeletal crew — literally a skeletal crew.

The boat was manned by seven skeletons of pirates desperately trying to escape the clutches of a giant kraken with tentacles wrapped around the ship.

Contessa spent hours making the huge tentacles from paper mache. Dozens of suction cups were glued on to give it a realistic and frightening appearance. It was then spray painted to look like a deadly creature from the deep.

There were seven life-sized skeletons on the ship. One was behind the wheel, another in the crow’s nest trying to pull his friend to safety, and another was hanging on for dear life on the prow of the ship. One poor fellow is being keelhauled while the sea monster is attacking.

One observer said the crew really had nothing to fear.

“The kraken can’t kill them,” he said. “They’re already dead.”

As in past years, many people stopped by to take pictures of the scene and to tell the Meachams how much they liked them getting into the spirit of Halloween.

Some visitors brought children wearing Halloween pirate costumes and took pictures of them standing next to the ship.

“It took us five full days to build it,” Kelly said. “The rain was a problem for us. Those five work days took place over a two-week period. People start asking us in July what we are going to have that year. We try to keep it secret until we unveil it during the Halloween season. It’s a lot of fun for us. Halloween is a fun time of year, and we want everyone to enjoy the season and the scene we have in our yard.”

Kelly hints that they are planning something really special for Halloween 2022 but is mum about the details.

One of the skeletons was featured on the Facebook page of their church, St. John’s Episcopal in West Point. For 31 days in October, the page had Halloween bedtime stories for children under the name Dem Bones. They plan to continue doing something special for children during the Christmas season as well.

“We will be having lots of Christmas stories for the kids,” Kelly said. “Everyone seems to enjoy it.”

The Meachams are retired but not planning to slow down with their Halloween yard scenes.

“We’d like to keep doing it as long as we can,” Kelly said.