I Have Big Halloween Ideas, But No Follow-Through
Halloween is in less than a week. A month ago, I was foaming at the bit with costume ideas and designs for the twins, their dad, and I; today I went shopping at the thrift store for whatever one-year-old-sized costumes they have. I have big Halloween dreams, but when it comes to making them come true, I collapse like a souffle in a freezer.
It’s not as if I’m some helpless kitten when it comes to costuming. I have a sewing machine and I know how to use it, but somehow I only seem to manage to drag it up from the basement when there’s a pair of pants that needs re-seaming. I can knit, I can paint, I am handy with a hot glue gun. There is absolutely no reason for me to fail at DIY costuming, except that I cannot seem to actually start doing the thing myself. And yet, every year, even as I sketch out cool costume plans and make to-do lists as September wanes, by the time I’m running out of October, I’ve got zilch to show for it except a mounting sense of panic.
This year it was going to be a Guardians of the Galaxy family costume. The mister was very enthusiastic about dressing up as Groot, and I could totally picture myself going green with a Gamora costume. We have a stuffed raccoon; throw a red jacket and some old-school headphones on Baby #1, doodle with a red fabric marker on a blue shirt for Baby #2, voila! Adorableness.
Except … how do you turn a grown man into a walking tree without a.) spending a small fortune on molding a mask, or b.) tying some twigs to him that will fall off by the time we walk down our own driveway? Also, apparently everyone else in the world had the same costume idea, because you cannot find old headphones in any thrift store in a twenty-light-year radius; and while I can sew, knit, and doodle, my fabric marker designs might as well have been done by the one-year-olds themselves for how well they turned out.
This happens every year. I couldn’t find a hat I was happy with for Fionna from Adventure Time, so that costume got scrapped. I never got around to finding or making a Dr. Horrible lab coat. Jesus, I’ve talked about being a deviled egg (complete with white-and-yellow egg yolk shirt, devil horns, and pitchfork) for like five years now but I can’t even seem to muster the willpower to glue a piece of yellow felt to a Hanes undershirt. And now that I’m under the (self-imposed) pressure to make sure that not only am I fittingly be-costumed, but that my kids are appropriately adorable too? I give up.
We went to St Vincent de Paul and instead of a sci-fi hero, my daughter is going to be a fluffy duckling. I even scored a $3 Pottery Barn lobster costume for my son. They’re going to be about eight trillion times cuter than they would have been in any over-elaborate costumes I could have come up with, and I’m much happier spending $8 for two costumes than a trillion hojillion dollars for the supplies it would have taken to bedeck the whole family in hand-made gear. It’s going to be a cheap, fun, and super-cute Halloween … all of which does not bode well for my planned pint-sized matching Luke and Leia costumes for next year.
(Image: Photobac/Shutterstock)
