As in the stories, you may wish to have a tree to place a small gift under. You can buy various Halloween trees, or you can make one.
There are trees in my yard that are always dropping their leafless branches on the ground. I use them for my tree. To make it stand upright, you can use a flower pot or pumpkin. Rocks or glass vase fillers can fill in around the main branch to hold it upright. String some orange or purple lights around the smaller branches for a eerie glow.
A suggestion when retrieving an outside branch is to spray or dunk it in a tub. It may have some bugs hiding under any loose bark. If your new tree is a good one, you make want to spray some lacquer or some other sealer on it to preserve its use.