Meet the Spinesteins: Fayetteville Family Spreading Spooky Smiles With Yard Skeletons
If you are driving around in Fayetteville, you’ll notice several yards decorated for Halloween. However, one yard in the Jack Britt district is putting an extra special spooky spin on family fun with their “Meet the Spinesteins” skeleton display.
Their yard on Jacob’s Creek Circle is filled with a family of skeletons affectionately known as “The Spinesteins.” What started as a fun family bonding time during the pandemic, has now turned into something the family says has a “life of their own.”
The Spinesteins have gained viral fame, and serve as a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
We recently talked with Valerie Lake, one of the “respirating admins” for the Spinesteins about how the project came to, uh, life. And about how its impacting lives for the better.
Please, tell me a little about yourselves? Are you Fayetteville natives? How long have you been in the area?
We are not Fayetteville natives but have been here since 2012. We moved into our current home on Jacob’s Creek Circle in early 2020 (just prior to the pandemic).
Where did the inspiration come from for the Spinesteins?
The Spinesteins were largely born out of a need to do something creative and a desire to share something with our neighbors, during a time when staying home and social distancing had become the norm. Our daughter was in 8th grade at the time, and I pitched to her this idea of introducing a family of friendly skeletons that we would arrange into a different scene each day. She was enthusiastic, and we went for it. We had no idea, at that time, that the Spinesteins would take on a “life” of their own or that we would still be doing this in 2024!
Who are the members of the family, names, roles and personalities?
Bob and Susan Spinestein are the parents of two children, Jerry and Sally. Bob is a bit of a daredevil and loves to have fun. Susan may be slightly more practical, but she does enjoy Bob’s antics (most of the time). Jerry is a sweet, funny little boy who has his mama’s heart – but we may see some of his dad’s daredevil style shine through one of these days! Sally is the baby of the family and loves all things princess; she also loves to playhouse. There are two family dogs, Spot and Oreo, and two family cats, Pounce and Whiskers. These made up the entire cast of characters in 2020.
In 2022, we had the idea for a wandering “Where’s Waldo”-inspired character, and Cousin Waldo was introduced. His escapades quickly earned him a title of fan favorite!
2023 saw the introduction of a handful of side characters, including Postman Patella (he delivers mail for The Bony Express), Dr. Scapula (the doctor that Susan had to see for her broken hand), and Spare Parts Billy (he runs the Body Shop where we got Susan a replacement hand).
In 2024, we brought on a new main character, Grandma Spinestein, as well as a pet dragon for whom we have been polling our Facebook audience to decide a name. Postman Patella has made several additional guest appearances, and we still have at least one new side character to introduce later in the month.
The living beings who make the daily scenes happen and who share the social media posts are playfully referred to as the “Respirating Admins.”
How has the reception been?
Terrific! We live in a wonderful, extremely supportive neighborhood. Folks are excited to see the Spinesteins appear each year and are quick to volunteer to lend us supplies or a helping hand as needed. We’ve also grown our following on social media a little bit each year and have an awesome bunch of Spinesteins fans who encourage us from afar.
Have you had to worry about Vandalism?
It is always in the back of my mind (especially when we are using props that we’ve borrowed from neighbors). However, we are in our fourth season (we missed 2021) and, so far, we’ve had no issues.
Do the Spinesteins only show up during spooky season?
They primarily appear only through the month of October, although there have been a handful of appearances throughout the years for other holidays and events. For example, last year they appeared for the “Rind County Watermelon Festival” in July (a nod to the Tracy Byrd song, “Watermelon Crawl”).
I noticed you have a rascal in your family! Tell me about Cousin Waldo, he seems to be on the move quite a bit?
Cousin Waldo is a mover and a shaker! His back story is that he’s always been a free, wandering spirit and he loves to travel. He gets lost in a crowd and doesn’t always realize where he’s ended up. So, naturally, once he’s shown up for the season, he ends up wandering away from the Spinestein residence. We pre-coordinate secret “host” families throughout the neighborhood and the hosts help stage Waldo’s shenanigans in their own yard. In our daily social media posts, we offer a clue as to where in the neighborhood he might be found, and residents are challenged to find him – a real life “Where’s Waldo!”
We here at Beasley Media are big fans of St. Jude Children’s Hospital, please tell me about Skeletons for Hope and how the Spinesteins are involved?
It’s a nationwide fundraising initiative that uses holiday decor/displays to raise money. The fundraiser actually started in 2020 in Holly Springs, NC and went so well that it has expanded to a nationwide (actually, I think there are some participants outside the US now as well) effort. We became aware of this initiative in 2022 and raised about $1K that first year. We raised just over $2K last year. The overall fundraiser has raised over $700K from inception to date.
How can the living help with that cause?
We have a donation hyperlink on our social media, as well as a scannable QR code on a sign in our yard, for anyone who wishes to donate. It’s important to note that the fundraising platform sends the funds directly to St. Jude – there’s no administrative fees or operating costs being withheld.
What would you like everyone to know about this very special family?
There are a lot of folks out there who are doing incredible Halloween displays every year – many of which far surpass anything we could endeavor to do. However, ours differs somewhat in that our daily scenes are all family friendly. There’s nothing scary and no overtly adult behavior. We truly want our displays to be something that local families can feel good about bringing their children to see, and we welcome visitors to take pictures with the Spinesteins (although we ask that you don’t touch them). We also want to make sure that we don’t do anything that might shed a negative light on any of the causes that we support. We would also highlight that there are occasionally other nonprofit support efforts undertaken by the Spinesteins and, this year in particular, we are splitting our efforts between St. Jude and hurricane relief efforts for folks in east TN/west NC.
Two events that we want to make sure everyone knows about: October 27th is little Jerry Spinestein’s birthday. His birthday parties have gotten bigger and better each year (last year we actually had a “surprise” visit from the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile!) but, more importantly, his “gift table” is a place for folks to drop off supplies for whatever initiative we are supporting that year. This year we expect that to be hurricane relief. The “Respirating Admins” will handle the packaging of items and will cover the cost of the logistics to get collected items to where they need to be. Specific party details will be forthcoming on our Facebook page and will be weather dependent.
During trick or treating, for the last two years, we have also hosted a “Pie-a-Spinestein” event as a final fundraiser for St. Jude. For $5, visitors have the chance to throw a plate of whipped cream into the face of one of the Spinestein family members. Nothing is finalized yet but we hope to be able to offer this event again in 2024.
To check out the Spinesteins and support their charitable causes swing by the Spinestein House at 6346 Jacob’s Creek Circle, Fayetteville.
