Horrors Of Halloween!

"Backward, turn backward; O Time, in your flight; make me a child again; just for to-night!" - Elizabeth Akers Allen

Trick or treat! Again? Can't I just skip the sugar overload, and the crappy costumes and go right into November without all the Halloween horror?

I don't mean to be such a downer, I remember liking Halloween - when I was eight. What's not to like then? You get to be out after dark, roaming the streets with your friends, getting candy and dressing up. When you’re eight, that’s a win.

Now? I’m the grown up, so I have to pull off a lot more than just deciding between being a princess or a zombie. And if Im a good pug mom, I have to dress up the dog too. This year I had to think of a costume for an office party. #JustBeYourself 

First, it's the costumes. Store-bought or Pinterest perfect homemade? I've had to make a lot of choices as a mom but this one gets me every year. Without fail, each October I say, "I can make something better than those cheap ones they sell." It's some kind of fall psychosis that takes over once the first pumpkins come out and the leaves begin to turn. I actually begin to believe I can sew and craft.

It starts in September, when I leaf through magazines that promise, "Easy costumes you can make!" Not for nothing, if they were easy to make, there wouldn't be six pages of instructions in the magazine and a supply list requiring a trip to the supermarket, the hardware store and the recycling station. You just have to know these magazines had the entire art department, six interns and a general contractor making these fun and fabulous costumes. Martha Stewart was probably beating them with organic raffia.

 I have a whole book that has "No-Sew" crafts in it, many of which are costume ideas. Lies, all of it. No matter how good you are with paint, glue and tin foil, there is no way an air conditioner box, some dryer hose and forty-two Dixie cups are ever going to make your kid look like a robot. Trust me on this. Your kid will look like some post-apocalyptic junkyard dog.

And going to the store to get a costume isn't always the answer. I took my children to the Halloween store one year and it was eye opening. For girls, I could choose from "Sponge Babe" like the cartoon, only a girl or "Naughty Wizard" from the Harry Potter theme. Do we really need to put a nine-year old in anything that has "babe" or "naughty" in the name? That scares me more than any ghost could.

 

I could have gone with a patriotic theme and gotten her the military costume, "Major Flirt" which was olive green with a shiny black studded belt. No lie, there was a matching studded dog collar sold separately. That year I wound up purchasing a long black dress with flowing sleeves and she will be a "Vampire Girl."

For boys there are more options, but almost all of them included a weapon or fake blood. I'm fine with my son wanting to be scary, that is the point after all, but was it necessary that he carry a knife dripping with fake blood? We compromised and he went as the Scream guy, minus the knife, but with the mask that drips blood.

 

Once that battle is won, it's on to the candy. Should I try to be the "fun" house on the block and give out full size candy bars?  Or should I go healthy and give out bags of pretzels and sugar free gum? One year I tried to find a middle ground and I gave out granola bars but the cool ones that had marshmallows and chocolate drizzled on them. One trick or treater actually said to me "Did you run out of candy?" This year I'm going with little bags of gummy ghosts and pumpkins. Take it or leave it, SpongeBabe.

Finally, there is the house to decorate. Whatever happened to a few jack-o-lanterns and maybe a witch on the door? Houses now are strewn with spider webs, moving skeletons with light up eyes, fake body parts coming up out of the lawn and even sound effects. I'm sticking with the one idea I ever saw in a magazine that was easy AND fun. I plop white grocery bags over the round tops of my fence posts, snap an elastic over it and give them eyes with a Sharpie pen. Ghost posts!

Maybe I would enjoy Halloween more if I looked at it the way the kids do, the way I used to. One great night, racing around your neighborhood, with the wind blowing and a pillow case full of chocolate. Spooky fun, a carved pumpkin, and a scarecrow costume of my father's old clothes stuffed with leaves. Pardon the bad pun, but I think it's time I got back in the "spirit" of Halloween.

I think I'll start with a bag of fun size Mounds bars and once I'm through with those, I'll move on to the Skittles. Once the sugar crash from that hits, I'll be a right witch for sure!