Ghosts of Halloween Past making Halloween Present a Success!
Best part of the day most times, is that moment when you either have all your daily responsibilities met or have decided they can wait until tomorrow. It’s the time you get to put your feet up, relax with family, read a book, or watch a favorite show. Whatever floats your boat. Yesterday, my ‘feet up moment’ was upon crawling into bed at 12:55 AM! That is technically today which would mean I’ve already had my ‘feet up moment’ for today!!!
The making of my granddaughter’s Halloween costume was the reason for the late night. When my girls were younger, we lived in base housing and Halloween was a HUGE event – lots of kids, lots of candy, lots of costumes and such fun. My girls were also attending a Catholic school so regardless of when Halloween fell in the week, the next day was All Souls/Saints day and there was no school! They really hit the jackpot. I loved the process of watching them decide what they would be that year and then gathering our materials and creating those memorable costumes. Many witches, many princesses, many dancers – one year each was a main character from Wizard of Oz, another year a stuffed Care Bear costume hit the Halloween runway (note: we were living in Hawaii at the time and a stuffed fur costume was not the best option for comfort factor). This year, Elsa (from Frozen) is the costume of choice, and not just for my granddaughter. It seems to be the costume of choice for many, many girls out there. Enough so that Joann Fabric no longer has enough of the perfect blue and perfect snow flake material for creating this impressive gown! After many trips to all the fabric stores in driving distance (Geez Louise!), we have made some unique design choices in order to put it all together. A moment of panic occurred upon realizing we did not have, nor could we find, an Elsa wig. Given the love of Halloween in our home, Ari’s Aunties were on it! Creativity being an integral part of their characters, an impressively handcrafted Elsa wig was quickly assembled and photo sent for approval! I was not surprised and extremely pleased and once again reminded of how often it does indeed take a village.
As of 12:55 this morning, only the finishing touches are necessary, hemming and trimming!! (Hallelujah). Another Elsa will hit the sidewalks in style come Friday evening!
We know lots of you have your own favorite Halloween costumes either from your own childhood or possibly from your children’s. Please share any stories of Best Halloween Ever- whether costume related or party related or candy related or something else related (which of course sounds VERY interesting)! -M
Pictures would be amazing!!!
I too used to make my kids halloween costumes many years ago. It is a fun thing to do. Maybe I will get a chance with my new grand-daughter to do this soon.
Either way, it’s fun to re-experience Halloween again with kids. I know you have many happy hauntings ahead of you 🙂 – M
I always made my kids costumes and they won some prizes for them, but my most memorable Halloween was when I made one for myself. My youngest was two, his sister was seven and the oldest was twelve. I stayed home from work and made my witch costume, complete with long gray hair, long nails, creepy eyelashes and warty nose, an old black sequined-trimmed evening gown that had belonged to my grandma, and tons of green make-up. When my M-I-L brought the kids home the youngest would have nothing to do with me, screamed and cried, and his sister demanded to know what the witch had done with her mother, kicked me, and would not let me console the youngest. Their older brother and my M-I-L were no help, laughing all the while. It took a long time to calm down the younger ones.
Toooo funny! Proves the point that Halloween is an equal opportunity fun-raiser! I’m sure the kids can enjoy that memory much more now that they are older. 🙂 Sounds like a great costume. If you run across a picture of it, please scan and send on over!!! – M
Sorry . . . I’m too freaked out by the faces on those feet to comment further. 😯
OMG! I was just getting ready to type the same comment, Nancy! That photo is way too freaky! Another reason why I’m not a big fan of Halloween. Please put some socks on those feet!
Those bare soles bear souls . . . BOO!
I know – aren’t they great!!!! They convey how tired my feet were by the end of the night as well as add to the Halloween theme! A two-fer!! 🙂 – M
Creepy feet creeping along creaky floors . . . a two-footed two-fer!
LOVE the poetry Nancy! Now you’re getting in the spirit 🙂 You have some nice ghoul-ly items of note over at Spirit Lights the Way. – M
I’m with Nancy and Jill. It’s hard to get past those freaky feet. Reminds me of some medical pictures I saw one time where they were growing body parts–noses and ears–on the backs of mice. Never quite got over those pics! 🙂
Now that does sounds perfectly ghoulish Dee Dee! – M
Boo! Hilarious…no, spooky picture of the feet. Yikes. 😈
I couldn’t resist them – so original 🙂 – M
I LOVE the picture. It’s positively awesome.
I saw the deep wrinkles on those feet before the faces loomed into view – yech! Do my feet look like that? No wonder I never look at them! I have never done Halloween. I live in a country that doesn’t / didn’t celebrate it until commercial interests saw a chance to fleece the population of more cash and now it grows commercially stronger year by year as folk purchase ready made mass produced costumes and truck loads of sweets. I have a blogging friend in California who celebrates the entire month of October and she has taught me to enjoy the wonders of the season. Hand crafted, designed and created costumes, decorating house and garden, growing and carving pumpkins and partying til dawn. That I could get into 🙂
So glad you found your way to ‘getting your Halloween on’! A crafter such as yourself needs yet another reason to create and celebrate 🙂 – M
Halloween is only just catching on in a big way here in the UK. We certainly didn’t grow up with it at all and when my son was small, around twenty years ago, trick or treating was just beginning. Now our shops are stuffed full of Halloween merchandise and costumes can be bought alongside the groceries. We don’t have the tradition here that you do for this – it’s definitely an imported one, consequently the build up and the making of costumes passes us by. I’m not sue our young kids even know the meaning and fables behind their baskets of sweets.
Halloween certainly does have ‘sorted’ past and when one researches, it is amazing how the current day customs of the celebration has evolved. I know for my kids, dressing up was the best part, the candy was a bonus! – M
That foot photo is freaky as all heck, yikes!!!! Love the wig! I posted last year around this time about my learning curve with Halloween. I didn’t grow up with it in England, it only ‘arrived’ here in a big way in recent years, so when I moved to California in the mid 80s with my little boy I had no idea what ‘trick or treating’ was, never mind carving a Jack-O-Lantern! I soon got into the spirit of things though and as the years went by with my three kids I loved making their costumes but often left it to the last minute so I feel resonate deeply with you here! One year my son needed a costume for a school Halloween competition and literally the night before I slashed up some old, blue sweat pants of his, an old white shirt of mine, made his face up with some make up to give him a ‘beard’ and a few slashes with fake blood, the only things I bought along with the fake cutless. A belt and headband later and voila! He was a pirate. I didn’t think he would win against to all the other fancier, shop-bought outfits but guess what? He did win and I don’t know who was happiest, me or him 🙂 Wishing a Happy Halloween to you and your granddaughter 😀
Thank you Sherri.
Whoop Whoop to the Halloween victory! I am always amazed at the creativity of the last minute ‘pull-together’! It certainly gives credence to the saying ‘Necessity Is the mother of all inventions’. I think your son had the swagger needed to convince all that he truly was a pirate. 🙂
Regarding the feet, I will never look at mine in the say way again!! 🙂 – M
Haha…thanks M…love it 🙂