xoxoxo e: homemade halloween

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

homemade halloween

Jezebel's righteous criticism of a recent Target ad got me remembering all of my brother's and my homemade Halloween costumes growing up. I'm not snobbish about folks who buy their kids (or themselves) a costume from a store. Halloween and dressing up should be about having fun. And candy. But we never had store-bought costumes when we were kids. It wasn't even a consideration. Any opportunity to be creative would be seized. One of my mom's old floppy beach hats, dad's old shirts, a broom pole through the sleeves, some lipstick make-up: and instant scarecrow costume.

My dad, who had his own weekly newspaper, photographed our school's Halloween parade. The mummy is brilliant, isn't he? I made my Statue of Liberty headdress (second from right, below) and halfway through the costume creation process decided it needed the map of New Jersey on the front robe. So it's sort of the Statue of the Spirit of New Jersey or something. I couldn't even explain it at the time. Awesome.

Another winner from my brother was his knight in shining Reynolds Wrap. Homemade costumes don't get any better than this. I just wish I could find that photo of me as a hobo with our dog Rusty ...