Halloween Spirit Takes Over CIL with Staff Door Decorating Contest! 🎃👻

Posted on October 30, 2026 by CIL Podcast Team

Creativity, friendly competition, and a little Halloween magic filled the halls of the CIL as staff participated in our annual Halloween Door Decorating Contest!

Seven doors were transformed into festive Halloween displays, featuring everything from haunted mansions and spooky spiders to adorable costumed dachshunds and a little Hocus Pocus!

CIL staff and our Board of Directors cast their votes to determine the top three doors, with the winners receiving a little extra time off as their prize!

And the Winners Are… 🏆

🥇 First Place: – Winifred Sanderson’s Spellbook
Prize: 3 Hours of Vacation Time

🥈 Second Place: Happy Halloweenie!
Prize: 2 Hours of Vacation Time

🥉 Third Place: Haunted Mansion
Prize: 1 Hour of Vacation Time

Congratulations to our winners and a big thank you to everyone who participated!

Take a Tour of Our Halloween Doors!
Each participating staff member brought their own creativity and Halloween spirit to the contest. Here’s a look at all seven entries!

Door #1: Haunted Mansion 🌕 | Third Place

A spooky mansion sits beneath a glowing yellow full moon against an iridescent, star-filled sky. Black and purple bats appear to fly right out of the mansion, growing larger as they approach. A light-up bat lantern adds the finishing touch to this hauntingly beautiful display.

Door #2: Winifred Sanderson’s Spellbook 📖 | First Place

Straight out of the Halloween classic Hocus Pocus, this door recreates Winifred Sanderson’s infamous spellbook! Complete with a watchful green eye, stitched leather-like detailing, silver snake embellishments, and an eerie description of the book’s origins, this entry brought a little Sanderson Sisters magic to the CIL office.

Door #3: Happy Halloweenie! 🌭 | Second Place

Halloween has never looked so adorable! Against a bright purple backdrop, a collection of dachshunds dressed in Halloween costumes shares funny sayings like “Witch way to the treat jar?” and “We are just a couple of hot dogs in disguise!” Snoopy and Tweety join in the fun, making this door a sweet and playful celebration of Halloween.

Door #4: A-BOO-solutely Spooky! 👻

This ghostly creation features hanging ghosts, glowing eyes, and a light-up “BOO!” sign made to resemble skeleton bones. Black bats, shimmering spiderwebs, and colorful sparkly spiders complete the display, creating a spooky scene filled with Halloween surprises.

Door #5: Haunted Pumpkin Patch 🎃

A festive combination of spooky and sweet, this door features Halloween-themed words, black spiders, decorative bows, and a “Happy Halloween” wreath surrounded by skulls. A pumpkin patch filled with orange and white pumpkins brings a classic fall touch to the display.

Door #6: Creepy Crawly Halloween 🕷️

Spiders take center stage on this Halloween door! Orange webs stretch across a black background, with colorful oversized spiders, skulls, and bats scattered throughout. Purple and green garland frames the doorway, completing this creepy-crawly creation.

Door #7: A Little Hocus Pocus 🧙‍♀️

The Sanderson Sisters made another appearance in our Halloween festivities! Inspired by Hocus Pocus, this door features the sisters, their famous spellbook, and the iconic Black Flame Candle. It’s a magical tribute to a beloved Halloween favorite!

Celebrating Creativity and Team Spirit at CIL

While the contest brought out some friendly competition, the real highlight was seeing our staff’s creativity and enthusiasm on full display.

Activities like our Halloween Door Decorating Contest are a fun way to bring our team together, celebrate the season, and create a welcoming, festive atmosphere for everyone who visits CIL.

We extend a special thank you to our staff members who participated and to our Board of Directors and staff who helped select this year’s winners.

From all of us at the Center for Independent Living of North Central Florida, we wish our community a happy, safe, and accessible Halloween! 🎃🧡

May your Halloween be filled with fun, laughter, and plenty of treats!

Door is decorated as Winifred Sanderson’s spell book from the movie Hocus Pocus. It features a brown background with stitching that looks like skin stitched together. It has the sentient eye, green in color and awake. The book cover is decorated with silver pewter snake emblems in the top and bottom right corners and down the left side of the cover as well as the latch to lock the book that has the sentient eye centered inside it. It has a charred message that states: "This is the spellbook of Winifred Sanderson. It was given to her by the Devil himself. The book is bound in human skin and contains the recipes for her most powerful and evil spells."
The background is purple with the words “Happy Halloweenie!” All the adorable Dachshund dogs are wearing different cute Halloween costumes. Snoopy is lying on a pumpkin, with Tweety sitting on his stomach. Snoopy tells all the Dachshunds, “Wiener take all… especially the candy!” Snoopy is dreaming about a milk bone. 🦴 The Dachshunds have funny and cute Halloween sayings, including: ·         👻“Boo!” ·         🧙“Witch way to the treat jar?” ·         🌭“We are just a couple of hot dogs in disguise!” ·         🍬“Trick or Treat!”
An iridescent background of stars with a small haunted mansion that sits in front of a large yellow full moon. Bats in black and purple are going out of the mansion increasing in size as if they approach the viewer, a light up bat lantern sits near at the doors top edge.
This door is aBOOsolutely spooky, A ghostly backdrop with three ghosts and glowing eyes hangs with a light that says the word "BOO!" in skeleton bones at the top. There are three black bats hung in different positions around the top of the door. There are three cloth ghosts hanging around in a tiered style in the middle of the door. Three large shiny spider webs cluster at the bottom with three large sparkly orange spiders sitting and watching. A webbed cloth hangs from the top left corner of the door to the bottom right with a colony of smaller green and purple sparkly spiders creeping their way up the web.
This door is white with the words Haunted, Spooky, and Beware on it. There are black spiders and bows scattered across the top half of the door. In the middle, there is a Happy Halloween wreath encircled with skulls. At the bottom, there is a pumpkin patch with white and orange pumpkins on an orange and black background.
Just a little Hocus Pocus going on up front. We have “Book”, the black flamed candle and of course - The Sanderson Sisters!
This door is black with orange webs. Several large spiders in various colors cover the door. There are skulls and bats underneath the webbing. Purple and green garland surround the door.