Gearhead Mom

Monday, October 01, 2007

I Love Halloween!

Posted by Missy W. @ 9:00 AM

Booo! I love Halloween. I love just about every day in between September 21st and April 1st. I love to dress up the house, the windows, the garden, myself, my kid. All throughout college I wore the same random tombstone costume for Halloween. It was really just a pinata that I had found at K-Mart. I’d hang the tombstone around my neck with a pretty black ribbon, paint my face white, slick back my hair and chew on those disgusting “blood” capsules so it would drip from my mouth and it looked like I was a ghoul rising out of my coffin. Charming, hunh?

Growing up we always dressed up, whether it was Halloween or not. We had these boxes full of costumes that my great aunt cobbled together out of remnants and thrift store finds. She made us flamenco skirts, queenly ball gowns and magical capes. My sister and I, along with another set of sisterly friends, would wear elaborate costumes as we danced our routines to every song from the Monkees Greatest Hits. As I got older, my friends and I would raid thrift stores and get all made up and go out in these ridiculous costumes, throw on a fake British accent and see who we could fool. I know, I know, we were total geeks, but hey, it was cracking good fun. Some of my best childhood memories are of playing make believe and dress up. I have boxes of old clothes that I have saved for Sy throughout the years (just hoping I’d have someone even half as remarkable as she is). I can’t wait until she fits into them.

Since Halloween is right around the corner, it makes it even more fun that my girl loves to dress up, too. I can’t wait to take her to the local haunted house on our block. I wonder if seeing everyone all dressed up will spark her dress-up imagination even further. Good thing we have so many choices to play with.

Here’s my tip of the day:
As soon as the Halloween costumes start to go on sale, buy some imaginative costumes in the next size up for your dress-up box. Of course the items can be limited, but you can still score some good deals. I like the ones at Magic Cabin because they are a little less commercial, but BabyCenter and Babystyle tend to have some cute ones, too (especially for smaller tots).

Max loves to either be the princess or the ladybug while Sy currently prefers the hula girl outfit. Julie, the leader of our co-op play group, puts on these totally complicated plays with the kids (all between two and almost three). They totally get it that they are performing and love when they need to change costumes. The dress-up box is the first thing they run for when playgroup is at our house. Of course they all fight over the same items, but there you go. None of them seem to want to wear Roger’s black bug hat with the plastic cockroach attached to the front. I can’t imagine why. I’ll keep it in the box anyway. Maybe Julie and her little troupe of players will interpret Kafka’s The Metamorphosis next.

I still have no idea what Sy is going to be this year. Maybe she should be a tombstone? Umm. Maybe not. Any favorite ideas?
Happy Haunting.

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