Halloween!

With Halloween tonight, it’s time to put out the last of the decorations and fill the candy bowl with goodies for Trick-or-Treaters. Hopefully it won’t be pouring down rain like it was last night.

So last night’s adventure in the pouring rain was, to say the least, rushed, as we had to get home after the play, figure out costumes to wear, and then meet friends at the Edgefield McMenamins. My partner decided to go as Milton from the movie Office Space and I went as a costume a first wore when I was 18, a Literal Interpretation of a Split Personality. Sorry, I didn’t take pictures, but I’m hoping that our friend Laura will post some on her Facebook page sometime today, in which case I’ll steal them and add them to this post later.

One thing about keeping old costumes around is being able to pick and choose from something in case you don’t come up with anything new or simply are unable to locate the fabric required to make the costume authentic. The latter was certainly the case for my partner, who wanted to make a tunic and toga to wear like the Newsreader from the HBO series, Rome. The tapestry-like fabrics, usually made from wool, are incredibly difficult to find, even at a certain fabric store in Portland with an acre and a half of fabric to choose from. So instead of simply settling for curtain and drape material, he opted to figure out another costume, and since Milton really isn’t much of a stretch for him, and he already has the famous red Swingline stapler, it was a costume he could throw together in a couple minutes. Same thing with my Literal Interpretation of a Split Personality, which really only required me to rat out and spray one half of my hair and put on a bit of lipstick and eyeliner on that side too.

Keeping costumes fairly simple is the best way to not make such a big deal out of the whole matter. After all, Halloween is supposed to be fun, not stressful, and if you are spending all your energy into pulling off the perfect costume, you probably will end up having no fun at all. However, the one thing I really don’t understand when it comes to costumes recently, and this is quite the disturbing trend, is to turn every possible occupation or persona into a sexy version, especially for women and little girls. I understand wanting to be pretty, hence princesses and fairies, but why in the world would a costume maker design a sexy nurse costume for a 6 year old? As much as I absolutely love Halloween, there are times that I find certain trends to be not only disgusting, but downright wrong.

But since this is a fun holiday (although, not so holy) my plans today are to get out the rest of the Halloween decorations for outside. I’ve also got to set up the fog machine, strobe light, black lights to cast an eerie glow onto the tombstones and bone yard, and make the front porch as festive as we can with what we have. My only regret is not getting pumpkins to carve this year. Perhaps I should take the small jack-o-lantern out of the pathetic pumpkin patch we have in our backyard, the only jack-o-lantern that grew, and go ahead and carve it.