Costume Decisions

Last night was the church's community Halloween carnival instead of children's choir, and I got to run one of the craft booths. At my booth, we made door hangers. There were these foam things that hang on the doorknob and then we had various Halloween stickers and other foam shapes to use to decorate them. We also had sheets of letters so they could put their names on them, though a lot just put stuff like "Boo" and one girl put "Keep Out or" and then put one of the tombstone stickers under it. I'm guessing she has younger siblings.

Disney princesses seem to be the big thing for girls, though I was having trouble recognizing some of them, in spite of my in-depth knowledge of all the fairy tale movies. Part of the problem seems to be that all the costumes are of the fancy dress the heroine wears for the last few seconds of the movie rather than the outfit she wears for most of the movie. The other thing is that they make the dress even fancier for the costume. The Aurora one for Sleeping Beauty really threw me because her dress is very simple, with no lace or ruffles, but the costume version is covered in ruffles and lace. There's something wrong when the actual Disney princess costume isn't fancy and girly enough for you. If the costumes didn't have little medallions showing who the princess was, I'd have never guessed the Aurora ones, and that's probably my favorite of the "classic" era movies. There were lots and lots of Snow Whites and Tinkerbells (she seems to have been elevated to princess-hood. I guess Wendy is no fun because she just wears a nightgown through the whole movie), a few Auroras, a couple I think were supposed to be Rapunzel but without the hair, and one Merida from Brave, complete with curly red wig. She was one of my choir kids, and I might not have recognized her if she hadn't been with her mom. Though the wig didn't get the curls right as well as the movie did. I was joking that if my hair were lighter, I'd just need the green dress for the costume. Unfortunately, auburn hair doesn't have quite the same effect, though I consider myself a stealth redhead. You think you're dealing with a mild-mannered brunette, but by the time you notice that there's a lot of red in there, it's too late for you. You're doomed.

For the boys, there were a lot of Star Wars-related costumes, but most of them were from the prequels (and possibly the Clone Wars cartoon series), so I couldn't think of the names of most of the characters. I felt like I'd fallen down on my job as a Star Wars fanatic. There was a dad who showed up in a Phantom of the Opera mask, which meant that singing "The Phantom of the Opera" became mandatory, though I skipped all the shrill vocalizing at the end. I'm mostly well, but I didn't want to try going above a high C in public just yet, and I did have choir practice afterward.

One interesting costume for me was a little girl in a blue-and-white cheerleader outfit that said Eagles on the front. Someone made a remark about how for the Eagles it should be green, and I said it was just like my high school, since we were blue and white and the Eagles. The mom told me about how when her daughter decided she wanted to be a cheerleader for Halloween, she went looking for costumes, but they were ridiculously expensive, and she ended up finding this one through a moms' group on Facebook that got her in touch with someone from East Texas who was selling one her daughter no longer wore. So it turned out that it really was for my high school -- there are always little girls dressed in replica cheerleader outfits at the football games. The mom got all excited that I actually knew she was dressed as a Lindale cheerleader. The daughter was less impressed.

I remember when what to be for Halloween was a huge decision that had to be pondered. I tended toward the princess thing, and I remember the year I decided to be a witch. It was a very serious decision, and I recall telling my parents that I thought I was finally mature enough for a scary costume and saying it with the kind of gravity that you'd expect to come with "I've decided to join the army instead of going to college." I'm impressed that my parents managed to keep a straight face and act like they considered this as important as I did. Of course, I was more of a pretty witch. No green skin or warts for me.

Now that costume parties for adults are a big thing, I'm back to having to contemplate a costume. I've had one in reserve for a while, but it requires certain weather to not be completely miserable, and the forecast for this weekend is perfect, so I think I'll finally get to use it.