My mother made all my Halloween costumes when I was little. I remember a Raggedy Ann doll costume, and possibly some kind of witch. Kids in the neighborhood put on plays every summer so she made me a bird costume, and a cape, I think, or a cloak. I had in the back of my mind the idea that part of mothering is making a costume for the kid from scratch.
Which is how I ended up on my back porch at 9 p.m. pimping out a cardboard ride for 9-month-old Amelia Earhart for the ‘hood’s Halloween parade last Saturday. I am the least crafty person on this earth, so by the end of the three-block route the wings got a little saggy and the propeller wouldn’t turn, but the pilot’s skills made up for it:
What did you dress up as, as a kid?
A.
Great costume! Next year, though, BATTLE POPE, OK? She can keep the goggles, but the beanie needs to be red 🙂
I dressed up in 3 rolls of aluminum foil one year and amazingly (this was in a little New England town where everyone knew everyone) no one could tell who I was.
The only adult costume party I ever went to I made a paper-mache crocodile head that went straight up and made me 12 feet tall. The party was a bust though, as some guy dressed up as Fidel Castro wouldn’t leave me alone and he was waggling his cigar at me all evening. There’s a lesson in there, somewhere, probably, that I could find if I had 5 or 6 more rum-and-hot-ciders.
my wife made an incredible lamb costume for the kid when she was in 1st grade. Every house said, “what a cute lion!” by the end of the night, the kid was really pissed.
When my boys were much younger, but mobile, I fulfilled a long-held dream and made them jawa costumes. Complete with the backpack blaster thingee they use to take down r2d2. The black see-through face coverings and the burlap hoods were pretty warm so after a while they removed them. For the rest of the evening people thought they were monks. There was much irritated “We’re Jawas!”
My mom made a long succession of marvelous Halloween costumes for my sisters and me. My favorite was my Phantom of the Opera outfit, complete with tux and top hat, all made by hand out of fabric scraps and random garbage: the top hat started as a KFC bucket of chicken. Attached inside the top hat was a fabric mask she made of the Phantom’s disfigured face with elastic around the neck, so I could wear that without having some rubber thing that didn’t breathe and impaired my vision, or I could just tuck it up inside the hat. The design was pure genius. I loved that costume and wore it for years and in several homespun dramatic productions as well. When we cleaned out the house after mom died a few years ago we found the rats had made short work of it, so sic transit gloria mundi.
The Ameila Earhart costume is fabulous though. My mom would wish she had thought of that. Also genius.
One of my favorite Halloweens the whole family did cardboard-based costumes. My mom was a ladybug, my dad was a turtle, and I was a butterfly – mine involved just tracing wings on a refrigerator box, gluing some horrific 1970s upholstery remnants to them, and tacking them down along the edges with black gaffers tape to make a pretty outline. I’m not sure how I incorporated the standard upper Midwest heavy coat into that costume, though.
My favorite costume that I saw a friend wearing was a last minute Charlie Brown ghost. She had to keep explaining it because even then we were too far past the time that people knew what a Charlie Brown ghost was, but all she needed was white sheet with lots of holes cut in it and POOF COSTUME
I was in grade school in the late 1970s, so three of my friends and I all dressed up like the rock band KISS. It was just as bad as you imagine! I also created my own DIY R2-D2 costume one year. It weighed so much I was exhausted after ToTing.
None of my Halloween costumes stand out in my memory but I will never forget the costumes my mom made for the Book Fair contest. I snagged 2nd place with the Rapunzel outfit- it involved the strategic removal of a giant pointy Princess hat that released 15 foot of yellow yarn hair. Pretty uncharacteristically femme for me even in second grade. Next year I was the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland (the Tenniel version not Disney, natch http://www.alice-in-wonderland-quotes.com/images/queenofhearts_jt.jpg) Very baroque, with a lot of glitter.
our neighborhood sort of killed halloween. too unsafe for little white kids after dark. tho, i vaguely remember doing it.
My mom made me a Union officer’s costume when I was in fifth grade. My buddy’s mom made him a Confederate general’s costume (he was born in Baton Rouge), and we went to the annual Halloween parade as Gen. Grant and Gen. Lee. We thought we were pretty hot stuff until our friend Paul started calling us General Ant and General Flea, which sort of took the luster off.
I went as Daniel Boone one year … in a tunic Mom made for me out of floral print canvas ($1 remnant) and the fringe from a dead chenille bedspread. Actual moccasin boots, tho, and I swiped a kitchen knife to tuck into one. White shirt, blue (early-70s doubleknit) stretch pants, and a dime-store ‘coonskin cap. Oh, and a black-tape-wrapped hoe handle for a musket.
Is 18 young? My roommate and I went to a Halloween party our freshman year as angel dust and a coke spoon.