San Jose woman continues Halloween decoration tradition in honor of her son

By Kelsi Thorud

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    SAN JOSE, California (KPIX) — For some kids, Halloween, with all it’s creepy characters, spooky skeletons, and scream-inducing scare machines, can be a bit daunting.

But for Christopher Jimenez, Halloween was one of his favorite times of the year.

“Nothing scared him. His laugh was so huge and he just would touch the animatronics and laugh. He just enjoyed everything about it,” said Shelly Jimenez, Chris’s mom.

Chris and his twin sister Kayla came into this world on Feb. 24, 1995.

Their mom, Jimenez, said both were born premature. Chris weighed just 2 pounds.

“Pretty much everything that could go wrong with a premature baby did go wrong with Chris. He had cerebral palsy, he had vision loss due to the prematurity, he had lung disease,” said Jimenez.

After the twins were born, she became Chris’s full-time caretaker. She said from a young age she could tell he loved Halloween.

“He loved going out. Like we used to drive them around to all the neighborhoods looking for Halloween lights,” said Jimenez.

But then back in 2018, Chris’s health started deteriorating. He could no longer go out and see the neighborhood decorations. So, Jimenez came up with an idea.

“I thought I’m just going to decorate our front yard, and we’ll wheel Chris out in his wheelchair and he can enjoy the lights and the animatronics and have fun,” said Jimenez.

She and her husband Sal got to work putting up not just a few lights and goofy decorations, but building an elaborate scene filled with everything a Halloween lover could dream of, and of course it had a theme.

“In 2019, it was the creepy clown carnival,” said Jimenez.

She said Chris loved the decorations so much that the family made it an annual tradition.

One year, the theme was a graveyard, another it was a swamp. She said it got so popular people from all over the city started coming by to see.

“We could be in the house and you know sitting on the couch and an animatronic would go off and you’d hear someone scream out here and he would just burst out laughing, he loved it,” said

Earlier this year, at the age of 29, Chris passed away.

Jimenez said it’s been so very difficult to imagine a Halloween without Chris, but after contemplating whether or not to decorate the house, she chose to do it in his honor.

“I really wanted to honor Chris in some way because he loved it so much and through all of these years the community found out about it and I know how much they enjoy it,” said Shelly.

So, she and Sal once again brought out their hundreds of decorations, this year adding to their display a scavenger hunt where people can spot Chris’s favorite childhood toys hidden throughout the scene.

“I mean, to me, this was just like such a little simple thing that I started out just for Christopher so he can have some enjoyment in his life and to know that it has grown so large for the community and farther, it just makes me so, so happy, and I’m grateful because people, they care,” said Jimenez.

It’s a feeling she said is overwhelming and one that means so much to their family.

She said she plans to continue this tradition of decorating every year and knows every time someone jumps or screams at one of their decorations, Chris will be somewhere laughing.

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