SAN ANTONIO — In the West Oak Estates neighborhood on the far west side is a house that has taken Halloween decorations to a whole other level.
Joanna Meeks, who owns the home at 13918 Tahoe Vista, said she and her family have been putting on holiday displays for nearly 30 years.
“At first, when we first got into Halloween, it was just a simple ‘put up the blow-ups. Put up, you know, a couple lights and stuff like that,’” Meeks said. “And then each year, we’d find something else to add or we’d go to all the little prop stores and get more stuff and we’d keep adding it to the show.”
The Meeks’ display got a boost from A.J. Perez, who became friends with the family after working with Joanna’s daughter at a haunted house.
“He just had a little epiphany one day and I saw it in his eye, and he said, ‘do you mind if I bring over my animatronics, so I can put them in your yard?’” Meeks said. “And I was like, ‘yeah, that’s not a big deal and stuff. I don’t mind.’ Not realizing that we were going to come in with a U-Haul.”
Perez said he spent five years amassing his collection of animatronic Halloween decorations, but he never had a yard to display them in. Between them, Meeks and Perez filled the yard with over 150 decorations.
Perez said his fascination with Halloween and animatronic decoration goes back to his childhood.
“To be able to show all these people all these ton of monsters and stuff like that, just brings back a lot of memories from my childhood,” Perez said.