Hilarie Burton takes her Halloween plans very seriously.
The One Tree Hill alum, 42, joked during a recent conversation with PEOPLE that his biggest accomplishment has nothing to do with his TV work or recently published book. . In fact, Burton prides herself on being the town’s “haunted lady.”
The actress was discussing her plans for Halloween 2024 with her husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan, 58, her son Augustus “Gus”, 14, and daughter George, 6. I remembered how I spent Halloween last year. “My favorite thing we’ve ever done is work with our kids’ schools,” she tells PEOPLE.
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“There wasn’t really a Halloween celebration in town,” she explains. “So last year, we created a haunted house at my son’s middle school. Every parent brought a 10-by-10 pop-up tent and everyone put it together to create a room for the whole house.”
“It was a banana!” Barton exclaims. “That’s probably my greatest accomplishment.”
“I’m not interested in TV. I’m not interested in books. If I can be the haunted house lady in my town, I’ve achieved that,” she joked, adding, “I’m going to do it this year. We have to make it bigger.”Last year, there was a lot of pressure. ”
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Hilarie Burton Morgan, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and their families.
Hilarie Burton Morgan/Instagram
As for how long it took to build the haunted house, the proud mother says: “We came to school on Friday, decorated all Friday night, decorated all day Saturday, and then Sunday was the real deal.”
“I love scaring middle school kids. It’s so much fun,” she added with a laugh.
In addition to building a bigger and better haunted house for Gus, Burton said she and George are planning on wearing adorable mother-daughter costumes this year.
“George has changed his mind a lot about what he wants to be for Halloween,” she admits, but only has one costume idea left. “She wanted to be Barbie because she loves Barbie movies and we loved watching Barbie movies together. So while she was wearing a little cowgirl costume with rhinestones, I followed her behind. I got an inflatable Barbie car to walk around with.”
