Nightmare on Woodland Street attracts thousands of visitors every Halloween.
PHOTO COURTESY ZACH LEE
Heidi Milliken says seeing the size and scope of Lee’ s Halloween decorations reignited her own passion for creativity. She leans into a theme, like this‘ Beetlejuice’ installation.
PHOTO COURTESY HEIDI MILLIKEN
As an adult, the family would celebrate Lee’ s daughter’ s birthday— November 1— with Halloween often taking a bit of a backseat. Trick-or-treating often consisted of putting on a costume and driving to different family members’ houses before calling it a night. That is, until 2009, when Lee decided to take a different approach.
“ We just weren’ t having a good Halloween experience back in those days. So, I convinced the family to just stay home. We’ ll get some cake and some snacks, and we can hand out candy on the porch,” Lee said.“ So we started out with just a little pumpkin on the porch and a big bowl of candy that my daughter would hand out.”
Lee said, to his knowledge, he was the only house to leave their porch light on that year and somewhere between 10 to 15 visitors showed up that evening and that his daughter excitedly gave each of them candy. The family made it an annual tradition, and Lee made it a goal to recruit more neighbors to join in.
Slowly, Lee— along with wife, Jessica and daughter, Kayleigh— began adding more decorations to their yard, adding an inflatable one year and maybe some lights the next. He then began dressing up to scare the trickor-treaters with a chainsaw, the way he remembered Halloween as a child.
Eventually, he recruited two of his neighbors to hand out candy as well.
8 Cullman magazine | HOLIDAY 2026