Trick or Treat

 
Today was candy day for my little Peanut. She did remarkably well, considering Mama had her wearing little white slippers that kept 'slipping' off of her feet and the smallest bag that I had for her loot was as tall as she was. She had a very fun time. We even managed to get her to say thank you at most of the houses.

Hallowe'en is such a fun time for me. I know that there are a lot of people, many of them my own friends, who don't think it's right to celebrate Hallowe'en, but for me it has always been a fun and festive holiday. When I was a child, we always made our costumes and had family costume parties. I especially remember one year when my youngest aunt, newly married and moved into her first home, turned her house into a "haunted house" for all of the nieces and nephews. She had a different "scary" scene (my Grandpa dressed up as a clown, a witch handing out donuts and cider, crepe paper spiders and sticky webs, ect.) set up in each room, culminating with apple bobbing and pumpkin carving in the basement. It made such an impression on my little four-year old mind, that I can still remember the prizes that I won that night and what a good time we had.

As I've grown older, Hallowe'en has become a good reason for my stodgy, old, adult self to wear costumes and have a good time. I've never run with a real "party crowd" so most of the fetes I attend are pretty tame. We just have a good time and enjoy the company and costumes. My fav costume of my adult life was the year I was almost nine months pregnant and I went as mother nature. It took almost five yards of white flannel to make a toga to swathe my huge belly. I kept telling everyone all night long that I was a very fertile, late summer, mother nature. It was lame, but pregnancy costumes are really hard to come up with. It was also one of the few times during my pregnancy that I allowed my picture to be taken, lol!

I love to make costumes. I went to a small school that was lucky to have a drama department, so most of the drama club wore multiple hats. Along with my acting roles, I also got to handle props and costume making. We had to be pretty inventive because there was no budget for drama. Anything we needed, we had to get by donation or pay for it ourselves. This led to a certain amount of creation on the fly, but really, that was half the fun. I will never forget the time we were traveling for competition, two hours from home, and our leading lady realized that she had left her costume bag at home and had brought nothing but jeans and shorts. At curtain, we found ourselves dressing her in one of the supporting players dresses and sending said supporting player on stage in nothing but her undies and a full length winter dress coat. Ahh, the memories!

Now that I'm a mom, I'm in my costume-making glory. I love to dress up my little Peanut, and I'll be the first one to admit that I have to watch myself, as I can tend to go overboard on costumes, such as the aforementioned slippers. They were so cute and the perfect finishing touch, but she was slipping everywhere on their shiny satin-ness. We actually had to stop back at the house and switch for real shoes, but that's OK, she still looked oh-so-cute! Boy, am I dreading the day when she won't let me pick her costume anymore, but hey, there's always grandchildren to look forward to!

Hope everyone has a safe and fun Hallowe'en!