When I was a kid, Halloween was magical. We got to go trick or treating by ourselves. On the actual night of Halloween, October 31st. If that fell on a Wednesday night, so be it. We would go out there and trick or treat our little hearts out, late into night. These days, there are scheduled hours for door to door candy collection, and you're lucky if it actually gets to happen on actual Halloween night. Or night at all for that matter; day-time trick or treating is quite common now.
This sort of dumbing-down of Halloween might be responsible for my lack of zeal when it comes to costumes, particularly this year for some reason. But I can't say the lack of creativity is my kids' fault... because I never gave them the option. I only just this morning told my son, "You know, when I was a kid, we made our own costumes. Once I was a dinosaur, I sewed a big huge t-rex costume all by myself! And one year I was a table..."
His little face lit up at the description of what being a table entails, and that's when it all hit home. As a busy working parent, it takes effort to do a big elaborate costume planning campaign. It's so much easier to buy a pre-made costume. A few years back I put together my own Black Widow costume for myself, but I've been selling my own kids short by not giving them the same opportunity to really create something unique.
That ends now. It might be too late for THIS Halloween, but next year, it's on like Donkey Kong!
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