Halloween

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I was all excited about Halloween for a few years.

Well, first we ignored it. I mean we gave out candy but when my oldest was born I spend about five years trying to keep the news of Halloween from her. Saved a lot of work for me.Then I bought this pattern for a kind of boring, floor length dress, long-sleeved, that had ??? four seams.Up the sides, curl around down the under side of the arms, then across each shoulder.

For YEARS I'd just make this in every larger sizes for my three older girls, and by changing fabric, I could make them a:

Witch
Pioneer Girl
Angel
(rotate)

I bought black hats for the witch,
made a bonnet (hardest thing I ever did, it came with the pattern) for the pioneer girl
Halo & wings
(rotate)
:)

Those were good years.
We had a lot of fun being pioneer girls. I read the Little House on the Prairie series to the girls every winter for years and it was wonderful, except for a while there they all called me MA and that got old.


Then, as for ugly scary costumes, well, I just got tired. Sure I started out all idealistic and unwilling to compromise with 'horror' costumes.

At some point thought, I'd let them be anything if they'd just leave me alone.

My gosh, there were a few years with daughter number 3 got on this kick of wearing a beige trench coat.

She'd put sunglasses on and carry a briefcase.

Every year.

She'd say, "I'm a FBI agent."
Next year,"I'm an accountant."
Next year, "I'm an IRS Auditor" (Nothin' scarier than that, admit it!)


Then the horror began

This was a great costume. Lots of work too. Only, look at her feet. Cheap white tennis shoes. It would have been fine...except for the BLIZZARD. Her feet got so wet and cold she ended up staying in the car. Poor kid. You know how much it takes to get a child to stay in the CAR on Halloween instead of running up and yelling Trick or Treat? Why didn't I just slap black boots (or pink boots, that's what we mostly had back then) on her feet and forget the look???

Anyway, it worked out because her sisters took her bag and asked for candy for her. Kinda like Linus and Lucy and the Great Pumpkin.

I remember fondly the year I found a white blazer, dripped 'blood' on it, (red paint) dangled a fake stethoscope around my daughter's neck, painted her face white and her lips red so it looked like blood was dripping out of her mouth, and put black around her eyes. Ratted her long blonde hair up wildly--A ghoulish mad scientist.


Only trouble? By the end of the day, the white paint had mostly worn off, the red lips were mostly gone, the hair had died down. the black around the eyes had faded a bit. She looked kind of like an intern who'd just put in a 100 hour week. But I was too busy (or lazy, you be the judge) to re-up her make-up so she just looked tired. Poor baby.


We hit bottom the year I let my youngest daughter go as DEATH. We found an old scythe laying around in the barn. A real scythe.

Plus, I just used that same long dress costume, with black fabric, and BOOM, she's DEATH.


Or maybe, The Grim Reaper would be another name for her.


She got to school and her teacher took the scythe away from her. Mrs. Miller considered a deadly weapon--which is fair.

But she looked pretty cool.

The next year?
DEATH again, only this time I bought her these horrible fake hands and a mask that was just ghastly. So she didn't just look like DEATH she looked like HORROR DEATH.


They get the same amount of candy regardless, in case you've never noticed.