steal this idea

  

I saw a woman dressed as her grandmother's sewing tin for halloween the other day. I saw it on the internet, of course. oversized spools and thimbles and pin cushions glued to her sweatshirt, the lid of a giant cardboard cookie tin on her arm like a shield. 

and now all I can think about is the old cookie tin my grandma kept in the linen closet, the pink one filled with buttons that sat next to a chorus of old jelly jars. all I can think about is how much I loved that tin, how I'd dump those buttons out on the bed like halloween candy and swirl them around with my tiny hands, over and over.

and now-- now all I can think about is my next halloween party. how I will glue a thousand candy colored buttons to an old sweatshirt and craft a giant cookie tin lid out of cardboard that I will carry around like a giant shield. I will tell my people to come dressed as a favorite childhood memory and they will maybe fight me on it but in the end, they will do it because deep down, they know it is a golden idea.

335/365

halloween costumes I have worn:

vagabond gypsy girl, age six, vague but extremely pleasant memory of large gold clip-on earrings

wonder woman, age seven, classic boxed costume from the drug store complete with plastic mask

chorus line dancer, age nine, only girl in the elementary school halloween parade wearing black patent stillettos

ballet dancer, age thirteen, thinly veiled excuse to wear pointe shoes out in public

belly dancer, age seventeen, thinly veiled excuse to bare my midriff

flower child, age eighteen, an entire costume built around the most spectacular pair of thrifted bell bottoms 

the cat in the hat, age twenty-one, with ward as a very literal interpretation of green eggs and ham

crazy mary, age twenty-three, wig worn a tad askew, crimson lipstick gone horribly awry

fifi from france, age twenty-six, yes there was a beret, yes there was a striped shirt, my deepest apologies to the french

sunflower, age twenty-eight, just, so much face paint, so much face paint

butterfly fairy, age thirty-four, requested by a four year-old ava

pink floyd, age thirty-seven, pink wig plus pink top plus pink bottoms plus a name tag with the name 'floyd' written on it

boom boom corrona, the roller derby queen, age thirty-eight, the pink costume from above but with bruises and roller skates

cotton candy, age thirty-nine, fifteen yards of pink tulle, a pink wig, a cardboard cone hat, voila

frida kahlo, age forty-two, never wanted to take that costume off, frankly

334/365

a list for the day before halloween:

an absolutely terrifying story

an absolutely brilliant halloween door

an absolutely spooky southern road trip I must take

hashtag halloween

we are barely hanging onto things around here. and by things, I mean childhood holiday traditions and by we, I mean me. for her last official year as trick-or-treater, ava went old school slash classic halloween witch (though I believe in my heart of hearts she was really just channeling lydia).  alternately, ezra ditched trick-or-treating altogether. I pretended not to care. for the record, I am no good at pretending not to care.

I could not even get him to carve the small pumpkin he'd picked out at the farm weeks ago. though he did at least manage to scrape his pocket knife across the bottom of it and call it a mouth. since the thing already had two rotten spots on it that looked like eyes, it was promptly pronounced a carved jack 'o' lantern. okay. he will never admit it but he loved that rotten little pumpkin thing. the more it rotted, the more he loved it. and so did I. 

halloween 2017, I'll take it. melancholy and all. last year's halloween was an absolute disaster. this year, we lowered our expectations, kept to ourselves. and, it worked. this year, we celebrated what felt like the last of the last. who knows what next year holds? wait, don't answer that. 

(halloweens past: 2016//2015//2014//2013//2011//2010//2009//2005)

halloween

cousins and bonfires and pumpkin guts and hot cider and string lights. and aunts and uncles and charred marshmallows and ward's childhood monster record. and candy! and hippies and jawas.

and jawas!

full disclosure: I was hand-sewing that jawa business up until the very. last. minute.

double full disclosure: I consumed many, many bowls of count chocula.

halloweeeen

(scenes from halloween)

(not pictured: me in my frida kahlo costume, copious amounts of candy corn)

tricks or treats

from the archives: a five year-old ezra, an eight year-old ava and two old school (moderately creepy) halloween masks.

(happy halloween, y'all)

more halloween

she was all set to go as nancy drew and then she saw that pink wig at target. I've always wanted to wear a pink wig, she said. well okay then, you should wear one, I said. because surely halloween was invented for this very reason. for that somebody somewhere who just wanted an excuse to wear a pink wig. I would know nothing about this, of course. nothing at all.



and then there was all the tusken raider business, which I really wish I could take credit for, but I can't. the tusken raider business is totally the husband's doing. whom, I believe, was really making the costume for his inner nine year-old self. meanwhile, ezra fell so deeply in love with it that he vowed to wear it every single halloween until he is old. old like a teenager, he said.



yep, halloween 2011. year of lady bonbon, year of the tusken raider. and one for the books, that's for sure.

oh, time

halloween 2005 vs. halloween 2011. or, the beatnik and the butterfly vs. the tusken raider and lady bonbon. I guess there's nothing I can really do to stop time. or at the very least, slow it down a little. because boy howdy, time is flying, people. flying.

around the house

(halloween happy-making)