October 10, 2006 • Print This Post
The countdown has begun. As of today, there are only twenty-one days (exactly three weeks) until Halloween. Time for my annual costume freak-out.
I adore Halloween. I love everything about it – haunted houses, bats and witches and vampires and mummies, ghost stories, cemeteries, a full yellow moon. I’ve already started my annual October tradition of reading scary books and watching horror movies—the weekend before Halloween will be a total frightfest of all my favorites, like the original version of The Haunting, Lost Boys, Halloween, and whatever else I can get my long-suffering husband to sit through.
But my favorite thing about Halloween is the costumes. I mean, come on, it’s dress-up day. It’s a chance to be someone completely different—as outrageous or creative or spooky as you want. I can’t tell you one detail from the birthday party I had when I turned five, but I can describe my Halloween costume in detail.
My ultimate costume, the one I’ve wanted to make for years, is a Victorian corpse. Goth all the way, lace petticoats and corset and upswept hair, but, you know, dead. Grayish skin beginning to rot away, my dress tattered, a few leaves in my hair. (Yeah, okay, I have a dark side. Or at least a slightly morbid one. It’s a thing.) I can see it in my head—the perfect combination of elaborate dress-up costume and fright factor.
And what will I go as this year? Probably a clown. Or possibly a cheerleader. I know there’s a pair of pompoms kicking around this house somewhere.
I mean, hello? Deadlines, dishes, dirty laundry—I have time to make this costume like I have time to tat lace by hand, and make all of my own bread. Then there’s the small matter of my kids’ costumes, because yeah, Halloween is actually a kid’s holiday, isn’t it? That’s the thing, though. The eight-year-old (a slightly creepy eight-year-old, I’ll admit) inside of me is chomping at the bit to dress up and play.
I’ve always said that kid is one of the reasons I love to read, and love to write even more. Reading a good book can be exactly like trying on a new identity for a little while—if I identify with the main character, I can live vicariously as a schoolteacher in the 1950s, or a rancher’s wife in the Old West, or a duke’s daughter in Regency England. And when I write, I can create an identity, someone completely unlike me who gets to experience all sorts of things I never will.
Now if I could only interest someone other than Tim Burton in the story of a Victorian corpse…
Posted by Amy Garvey @ 8:23 am • Filed under: Amy Garvey
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I always loved dressing up for Halloween also! I went as a raisen one year. Used a gray,purplish garbage bag for that one. I rubbed some makeup on my face to make me look purple. Then I fashioned a hat out of the garbage bag also.
One year I dressed up as a cowboy. Wore all my husbands clothes, his belt, boots, hat, and had a rifle. I went to work in this costume. That raised a few eyebrows!
My all time favorite costume was a genie costume I had rented at a costume store. It was for a date with my husband who was taking me out to dance at a disco. He went as the iron worker from the Village People. That was a fun time!
A rifle! Wow. These days you’d be thrown in jail.
My nine-year-old wants to go as Frankenstein this year (which I am totally behind, because I love scary costumes) and I am so tempted to dress up my three-year-old daughter as the Bride Of.
Sadly, I don’t think she’ll go for it.
I remember when I was working as an aide in an elementary school kindergarten. We had parties that day, so I dressed up as a witch. I then proceeded to drive myself to the school, with my two children slinking down in the seats so that they would not be seen driving with me. On the trip home my car broke down, and I had to get out of the car and lift the hood, until help came. You should have heard the cars honking and other drivers laughing and pointing at me. But I think that the thing that stands out the most is when one driver yelled at me that he thought witches rode brooms………:oops: Needless to say from then on I dressed at the school in my costume.
But I used to decorate the house for Halloween with decorations on the windows, and lots of decorations inside for the kids. Since I live by myself now, I find that I don’t bother with the decorating anymore.
Hi Amy,
That was back in the 80’s when I went to work in that costume with the rifle. It was a fun day. Practically everyone in the office dressed up. One lady went as a hobo and did an excently job on her costume, including a dirty beard, cigarette hanging out of her mouth, dirty shoes with holes. It was hilarious!
See if your daughter will go as a bride. Throw in your own little touches. Maybe, just maybe she will think it is funny!
I love Halloween. My ten year old has a Halloween party every year with about 25 friends. This will be our fourth year having the party and I can’t wait. We get a little bit scarier every year. My seven year old hates Halloween, I have to bribe him to go trick or treating. That kid just doesn’t understand the mystery of this holiday.
I remember being a room mother for Halloween parties. I had 3 kids in three different rooms(country school), and they all volunteered me, every year. took a lot of thought to come up with different costumes.