When my son finally got to the age where he could choose his own costume, we had four straight years of Brett Favre and after that it was two years of Derek Jeter before he went into his zombie years.
One year I made my daughter's costume. It was a box of popcorn. I was so proud of how it came out that I made her wear it for a full hour of trick or treating even though she kept tripping over herself in it. Bad mom.
Last year, we were so worried that Trick or Treat was going to be a bust on account of the pandemic, we staged a pre-trick-or-treat event in our backyard with a couple other neighborhood families; I set up a dozen stations in the yard for the kids to hunt for candy in, and figured, "well, we'll still go out at 6pm and see if anyone's doing it this year."
We miscalculated, because while the total number of houses participating was down maybe 1/3, the amount of candy each house was given out had gone up by 4-5x, and since many were leaving it at tables at the end of their driveways, we could cover ground faster. My son came home with seven pounds of candy. (My daughter had 4-1/2, she tired out after an hour and opted to sit in the wagon instead; my son would've gone all night if permitted.)
Halloween was easily the single most fun day of 2020 (post March 11th edition).
So, I do not love Halloween, but my wife enjoys costumes and so does my son, so being an only child, he has had multiple costumes, based on the event, be it downtown trick or treating, school, or the main event. So I tracked his costume choices via my wife's very organized Facebook album of photos:
2011-Frankenstein
2012-Super Grover
2013-Daniel Tiger
2014-Beaker
2015-Thor
2016-Theodore Roosevelt as a Rough Rider / School: Jim Harbaugh
2017-Sherlock Holmes / School: Price is Right contestant
2018-Marty McFly
2019-Elliott from E.T. (with bike handlebars so ET could be in the basket) / School: Lee Corso, complete with Duck headgear for school)
2020-Scooby-Doo / School: Squints from The Sandlot
2021-Kool-Aid Man
I guess what I have realized is that my son just likes IP?
The hybrid costumes are the best. A couple of years ago my daughter (almost three at the time) wanted to be a princess dinosaur. My wife sewed some stegosaurus-like plates on the back of a hoodie, daughter put a frilly skirt and tiara on and she absolutely loved it. She's going to be a butterfly this year, a choice she's surprisingly stuck with since before Christmas last year.
I remember Holly as a pirate ship very well. I messaged you to ask how much cheese it took to get her to cooperate. You responded that, yeah, there were some bribes involved, but that the duration could be measured in seconds. This photo is right up there with your Holly-at-the-horse-stable classic.
We bought a fort building kit for my kids (think oversized Kinect set with plastic poles and connectors of various lengths). So of course my son regularly constructs weapons out of it. One day, his cousin (say 4 at the time) hit him right below the eye and he ended up with a genuine black eye looking thing. Fun call my wife got from the school nurse the next day.
Anyways, those toys are banned from the non-basement sections of the house but still manage to cause chaos all the time. The violence period, along with my son's WWII phase may last his entire life and he's only 8.
Halloween is my wife's favorite holiday and my girls both love it equally as much. Last year we did an at home "Halloween Egg Hunt" where we just hid a bunch of candy around the house and yard. We bought a giant bag of orange and black eggs and each kid had an assigned color so there would be even distribution, i.e. less fighting. The youngest got orange because she wasn't as good at finding eggs as her sister. Outside the house we used little plastic bags with jack-o-lantern and witch faces so they weren't looking for black eggs in the dark. The girls put on costumes and painted there faces and went nuts.
I'm still not sure about going trick-or-treating this year. We're both vaccinated, but they are too young. Most years, a lot of the houses usually put the candy out on tables at the end of their driveways and "tailgate" so it's pretty fun, but I'm worried about everyone breathing all over each other even though it will be outdoors. I don't know everyone well enough to assume they will take necessary precautions.
My wife has always hated Halloween but has become surprisingly enthusiastic this year now that we have a one year old to dress up. I think she's decided the baby will be Kris Kross this year.
She surprised me by saying she likes doing hip hop themes for Halloween as a mixed race family because we can model for folks how to not accidentally do a racism.
We've had some of the coordination and re-use, too: our daughter was a flower the year the boy was a bumblebee (she was three and a half weeks old), and then she was the bumblebee the next year.
Since then, she's been a panda*, Elsa, a mermaid and now Wonder Woman. Less of a clear trendline. Also, despite being three years older and significantly taller, she still puts on the panda costume regularly. Best apparel purchase I ever made.
I was going to stay out of the comments because I am not a Halloween person, and I know it's just a throwaway comment, but I am _fascinated_ by the porch geese phenomenon - I had no idea! (and this is despite still getting physical copies of the Atlantic, which seem to disappear into some kind of "print news Bermuda Triangle" with the New Yorker when my wife lays hands on them.
It may have been regional-ish: I moved from the suburbs of Detroit to the suburbs of Pittsburgh in '96, and I mostly remember my mom making the goose clothes to give to family back in Michigan where everyone we knew had one. The sewing patterns were still real hot commodities at Pat Catans though.
Also, I tried to explain to my wife that Halloween in Florida is total bullshit and she does not believe that it is any different anywhere else when it is CLEARLY a bigger to-do up north.
As someone who loves Halloween, but hates putting effort into costumes or comes up with things late, most of them are weird idiot results.
One year in college, Jackie, Dressed In Cobras, I wore my friend Jackie's clothes and pinned a bunch of rubber snakes to my hoodie. Never have safety pins on during a college party.
Grad school departmental costume contest? Aristocrat. Judicial wig, cat ears, tail, suit, oh wait, I went to grad school in Birmingham Alabama and it was like 95F during the day and I died.
Rudolf the Redneck Reindeer. This one sort of explains itself, but I wore it to a small party that no one else dressed up for, and through some miscommunication resulted in the absolute destruction of my grad school friend group that continues to this day, more than a decade later.
Now I just buy a bunch of candy and hope any kids will come by. Most year it's at most 1. Why do I like this holiday again.
I put in the effort once every 3-4 years, less so post-children, but easily my best was the first year my now-wife and I were together, when we went as bedbugs. It was the year Jersey Shore came out, and we decided that, in addition to the antennae, additional arms, and shells that I made, the bedbugs should be styled in the trashiest clothing possible. I bought a mesh tank top and Zubaz for that costume, and in keeping with what I wrote in the piece, I still occasionally wear the Zubaz around the house. (I am not permitted to wear them outside of the house.)
When my son finally got to the age where he could choose his own costume, we had four straight years of Brett Favre and after that it was two years of Derek Jeter before he went into his zombie years.
One year I made my daughter's costume. It was a box of popcorn. I was so proud of how it came out that I made her wear it for a full hour of trick or treating even though she kept tripping over herself in it. Bad mom.
Halloween is so great when your kids are little.
I love it so much.
Last year, we were so worried that Trick or Treat was going to be a bust on account of the pandemic, we staged a pre-trick-or-treat event in our backyard with a couple other neighborhood families; I set up a dozen stations in the yard for the kids to hunt for candy in, and figured, "well, we'll still go out at 6pm and see if anyone's doing it this year."
We miscalculated, because while the total number of houses participating was down maybe 1/3, the amount of candy each house was given out had gone up by 4-5x, and since many were leaving it at tables at the end of their driveways, we could cover ground faster. My son came home with seven pounds of candy. (My daughter had 4-1/2, she tired out after an hour and opted to sit in the wagon instead; my son would've gone all night if permitted.)
Halloween was easily the single most fun day of 2020 (post March 11th edition).
"zombie years" is dead accurate. Daughter went as a "zombie punk rocker" one year.
I was practically pounding my fists and chanting "GOLDFISH!" by the end of the post and if there had not been a picture, I would have rioted.
So, I do not love Halloween, but my wife enjoys costumes and so does my son, so being an only child, he has had multiple costumes, based on the event, be it downtown trick or treating, school, or the main event. So I tracked his costume choices via my wife's very organized Facebook album of photos:
2011-Frankenstein
2012-Super Grover
2013-Daniel Tiger
2014-Beaker
2015-Thor
2016-Theodore Roosevelt as a Rough Rider / School: Jim Harbaugh
2017-Sherlock Holmes / School: Price is Right contestant
2018-Marty McFly
2019-Elliott from E.T. (with bike handlebars so ET could be in the basket) / School: Lee Corso, complete with Duck headgear for school)
2020-Scooby-Doo / School: Squints from The Sandlot
2021-Kool-Aid Man
I guess what I have realized is that my son just likes IP?
The hybrid costumes are the best. A couple of years ago my daughter (almost three at the time) wanted to be a princess dinosaur. My wife sewed some stegosaurus-like plates on the back of a hoodie, daughter put a frilly skirt and tiara on and she absolutely loved it. She's going to be a butterfly this year, a choice she's surprisingly stuck with since before Christmas last year.
Princess Stegosaurus is so good.
I had a wretched day and this was what I needed. Thank you, friend.
I remember Holly as a pirate ship very well. I messaged you to ask how much cheese it took to get her to cooperate. You responded that, yeah, there were some bribes involved, but that the duration could be measured in seconds. This photo is right up there with your Holly-at-the-horse-stable classic.
We bought a fort building kit for my kids (think oversized Kinect set with plastic poles and connectors of various lengths). So of course my son regularly constructs weapons out of it. One day, his cousin (say 4 at the time) hit him right below the eye and he ended up with a genuine black eye looking thing. Fun call my wife got from the school nurse the next day.
Anyways, those toys are banned from the non-basement sections of the house but still manage to cause chaos all the time. The violence period, along with my son's WWII phase may last his entire life and he's only 8.
Halloween is my wife's favorite holiday and my girls both love it equally as much. Last year we did an at home "Halloween Egg Hunt" where we just hid a bunch of candy around the house and yard. We bought a giant bag of orange and black eggs and each kid had an assigned color so there would be even distribution, i.e. less fighting. The youngest got orange because she wasn't as good at finding eggs as her sister. Outside the house we used little plastic bags with jack-o-lantern and witch faces so they weren't looking for black eggs in the dark. The girls put on costumes and painted there faces and went nuts.
I'm still not sure about going trick-or-treating this year. We're both vaccinated, but they are too young. Most years, a lot of the houses usually put the candy out on tables at the end of their driveways and "tailgate" so it's pretty fun, but I'm worried about everyone breathing all over each other even though it will be outdoors. I don't know everyone well enough to assume they will take necessary precautions.
My wife has always hated Halloween but has become surprisingly enthusiastic this year now that we have a one year old to dress up. I think she's decided the baby will be Kris Kross this year.
hopefully your missus will revisit this costume when your child is old enough to really
jump
jump
jump
She surprised me by saying she likes doing hip hop themes for Halloween as a mixed race family because we can model for folks how to not accidentally do a racism.
We dressed up as the Sanderson Sisters last year the pic is pretty amazing.
The Mac Daddy (RIP) or the Daddy Mac?
Daddy Mac. Hair was the deciding factor.
My youngest is 10, and has an older brother, so mom was able to force coordination a lot in the early years:
2011- A parrot (big bro was a pirate)
2012 - a Dalmatian (bro was a fireman)
2013 - Toothless from How to train your dragon (mom made costume)
2014 - Superman (with added musculature -- reused from big bro)
2015 - Darth Vader (along with 10 other boys in his class)
2016 - astronaut (A trip to Kennedy Space Center earlier in the year)
2017 - Starlord from Guardians of the Galaxy (mask and jacket sold him at the store)
2018 - Daniel Larusso (We were early adopters of Cobra Kai on Youtube)
2019 - werewolf (another big bro re-use)
2020 - a skeleton (found a mask at the Spirit store he loved)
2021 - currently Marty McFly, but could change in two weeks.
We've had some of the coordination and re-use, too: our daughter was a flower the year the boy was a bumblebee (she was three and a half weeks old), and then she was the bumblebee the next year.
Since then, she's been a panda*, Elsa, a mermaid and now Wonder Woman. Less of a clear trendline. Also, despite being three years older and significantly taller, she still puts on the panda costume regularly. Best apparel purchase I ever made.
I was going to stay out of the comments because I am not a Halloween person, and I know it's just a throwaway comment, but I am _fascinated_ by the porch geese phenomenon - I had no idea! (and this is despite still getting physical copies of the Atlantic, which seem to disappear into some kind of "print news Bermuda Triangle" with the New Yorker when my wife lays hands on them.
It may have been regional-ish: I moved from the suburbs of Detroit to the suburbs of Pittsburgh in '96, and I mostly remember my mom making the goose clothes to give to family back in Michigan where everyone we knew had one. The sewing patterns were still real hot commodities at Pat Catans though.
I have seen it with various statues, but I don't think ever a goose...
Neighbor lady still does it with an owl statue.
Also, I tried to explain to my wife that Halloween in Florida is total bullshit and she does not believe that it is any different anywhere else when it is CLEARLY a bigger to-do up north.
I have a few questions:
1. what do you do with the old costumes? do they get thrown away immediately or stashed in the attic for 5 years first?
2. is it around 3, 3.5 when they decide they want to choose their own costumes? If so, this might be our last one making the call (eek!)
3. do you dress up with your kids?
P.S. - we have a neighbor that decorates an owl statue in different outfits all year round.
P.P.S. - I am a 37 year old adult who is getting his wisdom teeth removed next Friday (double eek!)
As someone who loves Halloween, but hates putting effort into costumes or comes up with things late, most of them are weird idiot results.
One year in college, Jackie, Dressed In Cobras, I wore my friend Jackie's clothes and pinned a bunch of rubber snakes to my hoodie. Never have safety pins on during a college party.
Grad school departmental costume contest? Aristocrat. Judicial wig, cat ears, tail, suit, oh wait, I went to grad school in Birmingham Alabama and it was like 95F during the day and I died.
Rudolf the Redneck Reindeer. This one sort of explains itself, but I wore it to a small party that no one else dressed up for, and through some miscommunication resulted in the absolute destruction of my grad school friend group that continues to this day, more than a decade later.
Now I just buy a bunch of candy and hope any kids will come by. Most year it's at most 1. Why do I like this holiday again.
I put in the effort once every 3-4 years, less so post-children, but easily my best was the first year my now-wife and I were together, when we went as bedbugs. It was the year Jersey Shore came out, and we decided that, in addition to the antennae, additional arms, and shells that I made, the bedbugs should be styled in the trashiest clothing possible. I bought a mesh tank top and Zubaz for that costume, and in keeping with what I wrote in the piece, I still occasionally wear the Zubaz around the house. (I am not permitted to wear them outside of the house.)
Halloween in the South is bullshitttttttttt
what the heck happened at that party
It's so much less interesting than you're imagining.