As moldy pumpkins and spooky skeletons are tossed aside in favor of the imminent winter holidays, the question remains: What should I do with all those leftover Halloween decorations? If you’re limited by a tight budget or just hate to see your $500 fog machine go to waste for a whole year, here are some tips to help you stretch the Halloween joy without stretching your wallet.

Cobwebs

Now that the spiders and creepy crawlers have thankfully gone into hibernation, the tangled webs of white cotton seem out of place around the corners of your doorway. Living in SoCal, we are bound by duty to remind ourselves of that mystical element that evades our grasp: snow. Simply spread those hunks of cobweb as fake snow across your lawn, and people will be astounded at your ingenuity.

Carved Pumpkins

If you’re lucky, at this point, your dearly beloved pumpkin carving of Captain America only has a slight dusting of mold that could make it passable as an extra credit science project. However, within the crumbling ruins of what was once a glorious jack-o-lantern, there lies a golden opportunity to extend its life for a nobler cause. This opportunity: pumpkin pie. Gather your festering gourd carcass and scrape off that nasty mold to unveil a perfectly consumable vegetable that makes heads turn at those holiday dinners. If Aunt Carol notices that earthy aftertaste and begs for the recipe, simply tell her the secret is in the “down-to-earth” ingredients.

Plastic Skeleton

That scary sack of bones hanging around your door doesn’t need to be packed away just yet. Consider including your skeleton in the joyous holiday season by dressing it up as Santa Claus. With this humerus spin on the traditional holiday mascot, young children can have their dearest Christmas wishes fulfilled while gaining a new perspective on the saying, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

Harley Quinn Costume

Everyone was dressing up as her at every Halloween party, and, like the fool you were, you joined in on the fun as well. Now that the time has come to retire the costume for good, there is still hope to continue her clownish antics into the holiday season. Since nobody has enough cash these days to buy an actual nutcracker, a mannequin with your Harley Quinn outfit and baseball bat could serve as the perfect replacement. Although this may draw a disdainful eye from your parents, your hipster friends will applaud you for your “raw interpretation” and “innovative restructuring on an archaic nut-smashing tradition that technically makes zero sense in today’s culture.”

Leftover Candy

Just kidding. That stuff is long gone by now.

Fake Blood

Do you have gallons and gallons of that red stuff and hate seeing it go to waste? Dig a moat around your front porch and pour the fake blood to create a festive landscape piece that will make you the envy of the neighborhood. Nothing screams “Merry Christmas” more than having a beautiful scarlet river set alongside a snow-covered lawn that serves as a handy security measure that captures the essence of the holiday spirit.

An Actual Dead Body

That unfortunate soul that picked the wrong time to mess with you no longer has to be a burden on your guilty conscience, and, more importantly, your entryway. Instead of passing that corpse off as a decaying zombie with a weird smell, dress that sucker into a Santa suit and shove it down the neighbor’s chimney. When Christmas Day rolls around, the Smith family will have a hard time explaining the charred corpse in their fireplace to the police. There’s no better way to celebrate Christmas than clearing the bones from your closet and setting up your neighbors as accomplices to murder.

Lauren Jensen is a second-year English major who runs a mildly successful Pinterest blog on decorations and cleaning supplies.