This month’s featured series, Happy Halloween! by Anita Marra Rogers celebrates its 4th year in 2016.

Whether it’s her family members or her favorite Halloween icons, Anita Marra Rogers puts a lot of herself into the Happy Halloween! series.

The first ornament, which debuted in 2013, has a witch inside that was modeled after her daughter as a child.

“I gave her long brown hair and green eyes like my daughter,” Anita says.  “She’s 24 now, but she was a witch a couple times for Halloween when she was little.”

The little zombie boy in the third ornament was modeled after her son—especially the mop of messy hair. He’s 22 now, but she says he still refuses to comb his hair.

This year her husband joined the series depicted as a vampire.

One secret: If you look closely behind the ghost in the second ornament, you’ll spot Anita’s own self-portrait. It’s just another piece of herself in this series.

She says it’s fun to pick a new character each year then coordinate both the inside of the pumpkin and the jack-o’-lantern’s face with the character. That’s why the zombie is in a green pumpkin and this year’s jack-o’-lantern has fangs.

Her own Halloween traditions include putting up a black tree decked out with this series and a few other Halloween favorites. She always carves a jack-o’-lantern, too. Her favorite part of Halloween? That would have to be the trick-or-treaters.

“When the kids were little, my husband took the kids out trick-or-treating and it was my job to stay home and pass out candy,” she says. “I love to see all the costumes.”

She even puts on an old Hallmark cassette tape of spooky sounds to set the mood for the neighborhood kids.

As we look forward to the Halloween season, we can also look forward to next year’s Happy Halloween! ornament. It’s a special one, Anita says.

“Next year I’m keeping ‘under wraps,’ and you can quote me on that.”