Sunday, October 28, 2018

Designer Halloween?

What is as stressful as helping your child make an original Valentine's Day card box for a school party, a box like no other child will have, something formed in your child’s mind that might win a prize? It’s a Halloween costume!
Halloween is just as stressful.
Back in the day, I either made my children’s costumes or made part of it to go with whatever they purchased to wear. I made parts of their costumes for economic reasons, but I guess Dr. Lovely Daughter imagined her costumes were a result of designer couture. With Halloween approaching, she reminded me that as a child she felt sorry for the kids who had to wear the thin nylon costumes for Halloween. She felt that the purchased outfits did not measure up to hers.
You just never know what's going on in a child's mind.
Fast forward to the present. My Halloweens are easy peasy these days. All I have do for Halloween is... 
  • buy candy and...
  • try not to eat the candy before the trick-or-treaters arrive, except,...  
my trick-or-treaters are four grandkids (two these days) and a couple of other kids who show up. I have no idea who the other kids are. They are different children each year and are usually a couple of random kids accepting candy from a random stranger who has her porch light on. Nothing wrong with that idea, I guess.
The low attendance numbers at my door could be blamed on a city wide candy giveaway, the Saturday before (or on) Halloween (depending), where the kids dress up, visit safe stations of reputable businesses, organizations and churches and all at one easy location. I guess I have to be okay with that one. 
Here are a couple of pictures of my babies and their costumes from Halloween past.  And if you're wondering, the first picture (above) is of me in 1990. The bank that I worked for asked that we dress up for Halloween Day. I couldn't afford to buy a costume and my kid's Halloween stuff so I made my vampire dress and bought  cheap makeup and hair powder. I look very little like the young woman in that photo. Instead of putting gray in my hair today, I... well never mind.  


This Halloween was in 1987. My son wore his (authentic) karate uniform. I made his mask and hood. We bought the toy nunchucks. My daughter is a kitty cat. She wore her dance leotard and tights. All I did with this costume was buy the mask and attach pipe cleaners to the mask for whiskers.  





Fast forward three years to 1990 and here are my beautiful (cough cough) kiddos. I will not tell Dr. Lovely Daughter that I'm pretty certain she's wearing one of those thin nylon dresses in this one. As I look at this photo, I've never been so scared of my children. :) 


Trick or Treat!!!

6 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Halloween wasn't a happening thing while I was growing up. It is gaining a teensy bit of acceptance here now.
Costumes? I am impressed. And so glad that your children were too.

Elizabeth Spann Craig said...

I love that you made their costumes and that they loved them! I am hopeless at making things and my children made any costumes themselves that I didn't purchase (zombies were pretty easy to make. My daughter was a boxer at a Halloween party this past weekend).

We never know how many Trick-or-treaters we're going to get, so we buy a lot of candy, just in case. By 8 p.m., I'm giving away handfuls of it to anyone who comes by the door!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I think your costume was great.
I think most of ours were purchased.
We haven't gotten any kids on Halloween for years. Most go to church events here.

Pat Hatt said...

Sure had fun with their costumes. Seems that is the way all over, most go to the big events and avoid door to door these days.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Teresa - your costume looks to be pretty good ... I'd be hopeless at that sort of thing; love your kids' costumes ... very appropriate - but fun to see - cheers Hilary

Tanza Erlambang - Every Day Issues said...

scary...
have a great wekend