Long Live The Homemade Halloween Costume!

In the sixth grade, I had my first dance with a boy, Kokomo by the Beach Boys was playing over the speakers in our school gym. I was dressed as a present… a costume that I had thrown together that morning.  It consisted of a box with arm holes cut out, wrapped in wrapping paper and a ridiculous amount of curling ribbon in my hair. 

It was totally hot, as you can imagine.  My other choice was to be Madonna.  I’m pretty sure the Catholic school chaperones and my parents were thankful that there was a box between me and my dance partner, who was dressed as a werewolf.

Maybe that’s why I was team Jacob until I quit the Twilight books half way through?

What was my point?  Oh yeah, Halloween. 

I’m sick of kids these days and their $30 crappy costumes made by Polly and Esther.  I’ll be the old lady over there in the corner shaking her fist in your general direction, kid with the Scream mask on, who is too big to be trick-or-treating.  As a Halloween fan who passes out candy to roughly three hundred kids on Halloween night, I’m calling for a stop to the endless stream of yet another {insert whatever the popular costume of the year might be this year} coming up the walk. 

Help me out, parents.  Don’t you want your own kids to have ridiculous pictures to show their kids of Halloweens gone by?

I would like to make a motion that we return to the homemade Halloween costume as the norm.

There.  I said it.  Before you start crafting a dummy in my likeness to burn in effigy, hear me out.

I get it.  There is a whole rack of shiny new polyester costumes just waiting to be thrown in the cart.  Halloween, done.  It’s easy.  But, it’s not really difficult to pull together a few things or borrow items and do something creative for Halloween either.  Lyndsey and I managed to have awesome costumes every year and my mom isn’t a crafty person by nature.  I’m pretty sure those cheer skirts up there were felt that we used safety pins to keep closed. 

I’m also not sure how Lyndsey managed to carry that giant bag of candy through the neighborhood, but it looks like she isn’t messing around.

You don’t have to sew.  You don’t have to be ridiculously creative or crafty either.  You don’t even have to spend a lot of money or time.  We did it when we were kids, didn’t we? 

In kindergarten, tights, a leotard, boots and a baton.  BAM.  Majorette. 

In first grade, that hideous paint that came on a stick that you’d wet and rub all over your skin and probably dyed my skin blue for days, plus a blue turtleneck, plus a white hat and dress… Smurfette. 

Oh, I’ll let you see for yourselves. 

It could have been worse, I could have been the skunk.  Glued on cotton balls, for the win. 

She had a tail made out of panty hose too. 

In fifth grade, I borrowed my friend Jeff’s shoulder pads and went as a football player.  There was the year of footie pajamas and a pacifier around my neck.  And the one where I borrowed a lab coat and scrubs.  My mom still laughs about the time when I was three and she dressed me as a Hershey Kiss and some drunk people passing out candy thought I was a Conehead. 

Lyndsey was a clown, a Crayola crayon, a vampire and an m&m.  My friend Tara went as a Christmas tree one year, complete with an angel stuck to her head and garland and ornaments hanging off of her leotard.  Dave was a robot, a mummy, and a PacMan video game, also crafted out of a box.  My favorite, because my mother in law is a crafty badass that can sew, a Star Trek dude with the whole uniform.

He is now going to divorce me.  You are welcome…

There is a glimmer of hope though.  I saw it last year in the form of a s’mores made out of a cardboard ‘graham crackers’, over the shoulders, sandwich board-style with marshmallow and chocolate paper that I had to remove so Finn’s buddy could actually sit down at the class party.  It was glorious. 

When I am passing out candy to three hundred kids, and I see yours looking like that geeky dude I married in his homemade Halloween costume, I’ll be mentally high fiving the shit out of you.  Plus, I’ll be sure to throw in a handful of extra Snickers or Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup or those gross Almond Joys that Dave loves because I know you’ll be raiding your kids’ candy stash when they go to bed, and you deserve it.

Are you team homemade costume, or do you buy?  What was your best costume as a kid?