Lynne Somerman says dressing her 12-foot-high skeleton appropriately is no easy feat.

Last spring she outfitted him as a bird watcher, wearing khaki shorts and a size 6XL tall vest she found on Amazon, with binoculars around his neck and fake birds stuck all over his body. For Fourth of July she turned him into the Statue of Liberty by wrapping his bones in several green plastic tablecloths, giving him an inflatable toy torch and creating a crown with cut-up pieces from a laundry basket and lots of duct tape.

“I had a moment a couple of months ago where I was thinking this is a lot of work,” said Somerman, 42, who lives in Portland near Deering High School. “But then I think about the kids in this neighborhood. Maybe someday when they grow up they’ll say, ‘Remember when those people had that giant skeleton and it was so fun?’ I think that would be pretty cool.”

It makes sense that somebody who takes the time and trouble to assemble and outfit a 12-foot-high plastic skeleton would think about the big picture. Ever since Home Depot introduced its Skelly during the pandemic in 2020, it has sparked people’s imaginations and become a viral sensation. Skelly has sold out every year since it’s been introduced, and giant skeletons from a variety of companies continue to pop up on lawns and dooryards and roofs all over Maine.

A common theme among giant skeleton owners is entertainment value, both for themselves and for others. There’s something fun and goofy, they say, about seeing giant versions of this time-honored staple of horror movies dressed as a ballerina or a bird watcher or a Thanksgiving turkey.

Some people leave their giant skeletons up all year, dressing them for every season and holiday from Christmas and Easter to back-to-school and tax time. It’s also easier than taking them down and putting them up again. Home Depot’s instructions for Skelly say two adults are required for assembly but three are recommended. The instructions are three pages long, and include a list of about two dozen parts.

They also cost $300 or more, so some people want to get their money’s worth by leaving them up as long as possible. Skelly and his ilk are made of plastic with bones you can grab on to, and are not to be confused with giant inflatable skeletons, which lie sadly placid on the ground much of the time. Though Skelly is a big seller, there are some slightly smaller and less expensive skeletons being sold now by other companies.

Jessie Porcaro said she decided as soon as she got her 12-foot skeleton in 2023 that she wanted it to be a year-round thing, dressed for each season. Porcaro named the skeleton Skelvira, and dressed her as a sort of ballerina witch for this upcoming Halloween. In late September, Skelvria was wearing a rainbow-colored tutu made of tulle and a tall orange witch’s hat. She also had a long wart-covered nose made of fabric, and a 5-foot chicken skeleton for company.

Porcaro and her husband Bob live on busy Route 114 in Scarborough near the intersection with Route 22, and she considers her skeleton a public service. She loves hearing shouts of glee from commuters or buses full of school kids.

“I’ve seen a lot of accidents on this road, so I figured I’d make costumes for her and maybe calm people down, entertain them while they’re stuck in traffic,” said Porcaro, 40. “One time there were kids on a school bus yelling, “We love you, skeleton lady!'”

Porcaro is an artsy, crafty person who has always loved decorating for Halloween, so a giant skeleton was the perfect medium for her. She works at a large format printing company, where she does a lot of sewing on fabric prints.

Besides Skelvira, Porcaro’s yard is filled with a couple dozen of her other Halloween-themed creations, including a rickety baby carriage being invaded by several creepy baby dolls. A few miles east on Route 114 in Scarborough, there’s another giant skeleton on display that Porcaro admires, and that one is walking a giant skeleton dog.

Somerman works as small business consultant, and dressing Skelly has become a creative outlet for her. Before Skelly, she didn’t do any outdoor Halloween decorating. But once she started to see giant skeletons on social media, with definite personalities and eye-catching outfits, she told her fiancé and their two children that she really wanted one. On a trip to Home Depot last year, they brought one home to her.

In September, Somerman had her skeleton dressed for going back to school, just as kids were going back to school. He was wearing a bow tie and a vest, the same size 6XL tall he wore in the spring, and was carrying a giant inflatable pencil.

Caron and Pete Morse, of South Portland, came upon their giant skeleton by accident, but nonetheless have embraced its odd allure. Pete’s mother gave it to the family as a gift.

“To be honest, it’s not something we’d ever think about spending our money on,” said Caron Morse, 43, a social worker in Portland schools. “But it’s a fun thing to have out there. I think it just reminds people to not take things too seriously.”

The Morse’s skeleton is a deluxe 12-footer, with flashing lights in the chest and in the pumpkin head. Their house is on busy Route 77 and the skeleton is so big that the head can be seen from the windows upstairs, where 10-year-old Molly and 8-year-old Piper sleep.

“We can see it when we’re putting the girls to sleep. It’s not really the most comforting vision,” Caron Morse said.

The Morses don’t leave their skeleton up all year. When putting it up in the fall, Pete Morse, a musician and audio engineer, usually has to enlist several neighborhood kids to help, holding the ladder and the various body parts in place until the assembly is complete.

Caron Morse said her family’s 12-foot skeleton is taken apart after Halloween and the pieces are deposited in the “creepy basement” of their home, built in 1820. No bins or boxes are used, the bones just rest in a large pile for most of the year.

Most of the giant skeletons sit on a metal base, which is held firm to the ground with metal stakes. Some people add their own ropes and wires to make sure the skeleton doesn’t become airborne in a Maine nor’easter.

Emily Curry has a 10-foot skeleton in front of her house on busy Broadway in South Portland, near Route 1. In her take on the “Where’s Waldo?” children’s book series, the skeleton in September was wearing a striped jersey and was partially hidden by trees and bushes. So it was not likely to fly away. Waldo had plenty of company, too, as Curry had dressed a half-dozen person-sized skeletons as Disney princesses along her fence, and scattered other skeletons around her yard.

Curry, who works as a medical receptionist for a surgery center, said she loves the fact that people are doing so many fun things with skeletons right now.

“It just makes me smile, the way people dress them and do things with them online. There’s one going around now that’s about what the giant skeletons do while you’re at work,” said Curry, 52. “There’s so much anger in the world right now; it just brings people a little joy.”

Curry says her 10-foot skeleton is too big to be stored in or around her Cape Cod-style home, so she leaves it up all year, but positions it among some bushes and slightly out of sight. She has another 10 or so smaller skeletons, 3 to 7 feet tall, that she takes apart or folds and stores in large plastic bins in the backyard.

Another reason giant skeletons might be popular, and lend themselves to such goofy outfits and personas, is that they are not all that scary on their own. They are merely part of the human body.

“We’re all skeletons walking around,” Somerman said. “It’s part of us and it doesn’t need to be scary. Especially when they’re juxtaposed with something goofy or just very human.”