Party time!!
Little kids dressed up like hobos, and babies that look like bumblebees, and older boys all wearing some variation of the slasher/zombie look while the pre-teen girls...
Shudder.
Have y'all seen what passes for tween/teen girl costumes at the stores lately? There's more fabric in one of my dishtowels, for pete's sake! When did all the costumes suddenly become prefaced by the word "sexy."
Sexy Dorothy.
Sexy vampire.
Sexy witch.
Sexy axe-wielding serial killer.
Skank alert!!
And when did everyone start buying their costumes? I consider it a challenge to get two kids costumed for $10 or less. I had to go to $15 this year, though. Had to replace our make-up. I was bummed, too. I lost my challenge!
My daughter is 11. She's going as a Bela Lugosi style vampire. Long cape from the Goodwill. One of dad's old dress shirts and a waistcoat scavenged from something else. Slicked back hair and a pair of fangs. Cool and classy without showing far too much skin.
My 8yo son is going as the Grim Reaper (shades of Ankou, anyone?), so I bought a black dress at the Goodwill, tossed some black fabric over his head for a hood, and made a scythe out of a broomstick and tin foil.
I'll never forget the year that we had just moved to the UK. We were still in base housing and Halloween was the last thing on my mind. DS had just turned 1, and I happened to have a bright orange footy jumper. Well, I found some black electrical tape, stuck some random lengths of it onto the jumper and voila! A baby tiger! I was so proud of that little costume.
My kids aren't going as the newest, coolest version of whatever's hot this year, but it's so much fun to get creative with costumes. That's what Halloween's about for us! A chance to see things for more than what they are.
After all, in the dark, no one can see the duct tape.
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6 comments:
I agree that some costumes for girls are waaaay too suggestive. And pricey to boot!
This year, both my girls (11 and 8) are going as zombie mimes. Tag line from the 8 year old: they get you because you never hear them coming. I had to pick up a couple of items, like new makeup and white gloves, but basically they're wearing striped shirts and their own pants.
Happy Halloween!
I had to throw away my makeup this year too. I opened the zip lock bag it was in and phew! Out it went. :)
Give my son a can of pray paint, and he can whip together a costume in nothing flat. This year he's some kind of zombie hunter from a video game.
This year The Boy and I are vikings. Last year we were pirates.
Neither costume cost more than $8.
It's so much more fun to make a costuem, to see what you can do with an old blanket, some towels, and a bunch of costume jewelery.
I'd much rather see kids dressed in homemade costumes. Encourages creativity and discourages early sluttiness. Last year at the preschool I had exactly one kid in a home made costume, but her mom is a designer for Guess so I'm not sure it counted.
GREAT rant!
Neither of my kids ever got bought costumes here--though their father, blast the idjit, bought them costumes one year they were with him.
One year my son was a mummy with torn jeans, t shirt and old bandages. My daughter was a witch by wearing a nightie and stripped tights, and cheap makeup, with a cardboard pointy hat.
Another year she was a crayola (she designed the costume, I made it, still have it) and he was a corpse with a knife handle on his chest and the tip coming out of his back, and a bit of blood around his mouth.
I don't mind the sexy so much (I'm weird that way) as I mind the consumerism and oneupmanship it encourages.
I usually make our family's costumes, although sometimes, depending on what they wanted to be, it's easier to buy. For example, there was no way I could make a recognizeable Yoda hat, so I bought that for #2, but I managed the Princess Leia wig on my own!
Jody W.
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