SAN ANTONIO – The funny bones in this Stone Oak family are keeping the whole neighborhood laughing this Halloween.
The Dinotes are going above and beyond (the grave) this year by changing their epic skeleton displays with a new theme each day.
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Couples yoga. A Bob Ross painting session. A rock band. A construction crew working on a dead end.
Those are a few of the “humerus” themes created so far, but there’s no shortage of ideas, Steven Dinote said. His family has a running list of ideas, about 50 so far, and he says some are “pretty radical.”
“People are excited, the neighbors are excited about it because they’re comical,” he said. “It’s a family thing that we do, the kids are always coming up with new ideas, most of the ideas are from the kids.”
The family started their Halloween hobby last year after they jokingly propped up a skeleton against a lawnmower.
Then they started changing the themes around their two skeletons — and they were a hit.
“We didn’t realize that how popular it got … we had neighbors all of a sudden walk on up and say ‘We love your display, we purposely change our walks just to see what you got,’” Dinote said.
Now, they have four adults, one kid-size, one dog, and one piranha-like fish. Each morning’s assembly takes about 20 minutes and possibly some prep work the night before.
Dinote’s 9-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter help set up the displays on the weekends or days off, he says.
Neighbor Oscar Carrero said he remembered the “joy” the family brought last year during the quarantine age and shared images of this year’s creations on KSAT Connect.
Carrero said when he saw the first theme of couple’s yoga, he “nearly split my gut with laughter.”
“After seeing his first display, I thought everyone needed to see this.”
After the pictures were uploaded on KSAT Connect, Meteorologist Mike Osterhage showed the posts on Good Morning San Antonio, to the family’s surprise.
Dinote said throughout October, cars and school buses have been stopping by for a glimpse.
“We’re just having fun with it, if nothing else we’ve probably slowed the traffic down a bit,” he said.
The family favorite is the Bob Ross theme, he said, but his son would likely say the roller-coaster is the best.
On that day, the skeletons were riding the “Bone Crusher” at the “One Flag” theme park.
Dinote said their family has a great sense of humor and they are always joking around. If they can get one person to smile, that’s good enough for them, he said.
“We’re getting a lot of people coming up and thanking us and bringing a little joy. We had one person say there’s so much negative stuff going on in the news, everyone’s bitter with each other and it makes their day just to come over and see a little bit of humor,” he said. “If that helps, that makes us happy.”
“I think people forget to have a sense of humor sometimes. It’s important that we have to look past all the negative stuff out there right now.”
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