The doorbell to your home is used more on October 31st than potentially any other day of the year. It’s Halloween and there’s arguably no holiday where home plays a bigger role.

And by home I just don’t mean the address on your electric bill. I’m talking about the place where you chose to live. Sure you have your Christmas traditions, your Thanksgiving dinners or even your New Year’s Eve bash, but none of those holidays are neighborhood celebrations like Halloween. And aren’t our homes more than just the plot of land they reside on?

In recent years, Halloween has become as decorated a holiday as Christmas…pun intended. Ghosts, graveyards, and ghouls adorn the lawns, porches, stoops and windows of homes regardless of the type of city you live in. While certain neighbors may not celebrate a particular religious holiday, no home is safe from Halloween. If you have a door, you better have some candy for the adorable kindergarten princess and swashbuckling elementary school pirate when they come caroling with their sing-songy “trick or treat.”

Right now you may be remembering your Halloween travels of years past. You know which home gave away Pez dispensers and Matchbox cars that made you try and visit them twice in one night. And of course you have the other side of the treat spectrum with the lame folks that gave away pencils or “healthy snacks.” That’s right. I’m calling you folks out. It’s one night a year. Let them have candy!

On Halloween you pass your neighbors on the street, get to see the kids masquerade from porch to porch and enjoy the rare walk around the neighborhood. It’s a night where we literally open our doors to others and make preparations to give regardless of who steps to our front door, something we should probably do more often.

I’m willing to bet that if you took out your photo albums and flip to the pages of Octobers past, you’ll see some masked individuals. But I’ll also bet that photo is taken in front of a home. Might be yours. Might be a friend’s. But in either case, home probably played a role.

I’ve celebrated Halloween in many a home town from Rockaway, NJ to Columbus, OH to Succasunna, NJ (yes, it’s a real town name) to Irvington, NJ to Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Each one had its own costume and memory attached to it as well.

This year, we at Coldwell Banker are celebrating Halloween at home through the lens of one woman’s memory of Halloweens past and how it shapes her home today. From graveyards in front yards to chaos in the hallways and an overactive doorbell, there are elements that I’m sure each of us can relate to from our own memories of home.

You’ll be dazzled by the decorations and charmed by the children’s (and the dog’s) costumes, but we hope it brings a little joy to your heart as you think of all that home means…even on the scariest night of the year.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Honestly, what beats fall mixed with costumes and an overdose of candy? It also happens to be my birthday.

Here’s to Halloween and all the things that make a house a home.

If you have pictures of your home from Halloweens past or present, share them with us on Instagram by tagging them with @coldwellbanker.