Costumes? Really?

As scrooge-like as it sounds, I'm pretty much anti-Halloween.

 

Why, you ask? I blame The Ex and his psycho-weird family who basically forced me into costume for the 5 years we dated and turned their already hoarder-filled home into an even scarier sight with fake mummies and cobwebs everywhere. Although, in hindsight, maybe those cobwebs were always there? ::shrug:: My lack of enthusiasm was palatable and they hated me for it. So sue me. I am still upset I never felt skinny enough to rock lingerie and a silk robe with big flowy curls and go as a "Victoria's Secret Model" to their party. Maybe I'll crash it next year.

 

Anyhoo... Puff and I were out recently and stumbled across a rack of little kids Halloween costumes. And my maternal juices started flowing. I was "oohing" and "aahing" over all the little fairy costumes and pumpkin onesies. Plus, reading about the Corn Dawg Farm in Georgia from Katie Bower (HERE) had me planning little cowboy costumes for my unconceived son and visions of photos of him climbing on hay bales and trying to lift pumpkins as big as his entire body.

 

And in all that pre-motherhood gooey-ness, I realized that once we have kids, I will like Halloween again. I always liked it as a kid and have super fond memories of trapsing through not only my aunt's neighborhood, but also BOTH grandmother's. My cousins and I would pose for pictures on the bench in Granny's front yard with her scarecrow. We'd dump pillowcases full of candy on the floor and sort through the good pieces. I'd end up finding baggies of it in the back of the pantry around Easter that I forgot we had!

 

I had hilarious costumes too. Remember the early 80's when they had plastic masks with one little string to tie around your head? And the body of the costume was basically an apron you tied on? Yup... totally rocked Big Bird AND Cabbage Patch versions of those! The homemade bumble bee costume (complete with yellow electical tape) and then my too-sexy-for-a-10-year-old Cleopatra outfit was my favorite! Puff is such a buzz-kill sometimes, since he doesn't remember any of his costumes. Probably because his parents didn't love him enough as a child (remember when he never got a character birthday cake) and they forgot to take pictures to help him remember. (It's a running gag for us that they loved his brother way more than him!)

 

So, while Puff and I won't be dressing up this year, or carving pumpkins (that's a whole other issue all together) I am happy to report that hopefully within the next few years, we'll be much more receptive to the entire thing. And perhaps we won't hide in the back of our house on the 31st and eat the candy we had bought for the trick-or-treaters. Or maybe we will... at least until the kid is old enough to care about candy.