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Community Corner

Jack Skellington's Back in Seal Beach

Created by graphic designer Eddie Ayala, the intricate decorations, based on Tim Burton's film Nightmare Before Christmas, can be seen near the corner of 13th and Ocean.

So … there’s a big skeleton on top of a Seal Beach house near the corner of Ocean Avenue and 13th Street.

A really big skeleton.

Not the few-inch-tall Christmas light style ones you can get at Target. Not the three-to-five-foot tall ones you dangle from trees next to other ghosts and ghoulies.

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Try 16-feet-tall.

Eddie Ayala, who built and designed the giant Jack Skellington -- from Tim Burton's claymation film The Nightmare Before Christmas -- does Halloween big.

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Ayala, graphic designer and a retired University of California, Riverside police officer, said he’s not doing it show off.

According Ayala, he does it for his family, for his own enjoyment and for the neighbors.

Which is good, he said, because the neighbors like it.

“They walk by and they thank me,” Ayala said. “They thank our family for doing it."

In fact, this year, he said, he considered not doing it because he thought his kids were tired of it.

Until he told them his plan to stop. And two of his children, 11-year old Eliza and 19-year-old Geovanni, said no way: They wanted Jack Skellington sitting on top of their house.

And, since Ayala originally started the decorations for his son, who loved the Nightmare Before Christmas, Ayala again decided to raise the skeleton at their family's beach house. 

The Ayalas, Eddie, his wife Shelly and their children, Geovanni, 16-year-old Sebastian, Eliza and 7-month-old Isabella Inez, live in Riverside.

Ayala said his “spooky vision” for Halloween is not blood and gore, but Scooby Doo and Tim Burton. 

The inside of his house is just as well-decorated. He’s even got a Christmas tree decked with Halloween lights and, at the top, a Jack Skellington jack’o’lantern.

If you see Ayala on Oct. 31, he’ll be the one dressed up as Edward Scissorhands.

Right now Ayala is trying to decide if he’s going to build a tombstone-shaped doghouse for Jack’s ghost dog Zero.

“This isn’t about me,” Ayala said. “It’s about family.”

And if you want to find the house, just go to the corner of 13th Street and Ocean Avenue and walk inland. 

You can’t miss it. It’s the one ... well, the one with the giant skeleton on top of it.

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