I am the clown with the tear-away face

It's Halloweekend and I'm having trouble mustering much holiday spirit. Maybe I'm feeling guilty about letting my kids buy their costumes off the rack rather than making them myself (they're going as a vampire and a zombie, so it's not like they would have been super complicated costumes to make...then again, I don't sew, nor do I possess a single crafty gene). Or maybe I'm mentally exhausted from thinking about those Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins, which I cannot, under any circumstances, buy, for fear that I will consume the entire package on the way home. Or maybe I'm just not that into Halloween...

What I am into are the free things that having kids in costume will get you. So far our itinerary includes free lunch at the restaurant down the street, free slices of pie at Baker's Square, and possibly free hot chocolate at Caribou. The free dinner offers are kind of a trick because in order to get there and eat dinner at a child-friendly hour, you have to cut the trick-or-treating short...trust me, I know.

I'm also into seeing how excited my kids get when they put their costumes on. However, experience has taught me that the excitement dissolves rather quickly into discomfort of some variety (either costume- or weather-related, possibly both), which then makes them even more easily aggravated. This manifests itself in the form of dozens of mini-races between houses, with one screaming about being first and the other crying about not being first, with the 500% increase in sugar consumption only making the whole thing more fraught with irrationality. Good times.

I'm not actually as pessimistic about it as that all sounds. I mean, there's a decent chance that someone on our street is handing out peanut butter pumpkins, and we all know that candy you steal from your children contains zero calories. Happy Halloween!

Trick or Treat?

My kids want to be ghosts for Halloween. We talked through all sorts of fun ideas (like being a frog and a prince)...we went to the megacostumestore and dismissed all of the crappy pirate and superhero costumes...but nothing stuck. 

Then a couple of days ago Aidan came to me and announced, very seriously, that he had decided to be a ghost for Halloween. My first (silent) reaction was disappointment, as if he should have come up with something more creative (seriously, I don't know why I care), but within a split-second I realized what a fabulous development this was, as he had magically chosen the one costume that uncrafty me can make myself rather than shelling out $50 at Pottery Barn. Woohoo!

Owen was an easy sell. He responded with an "Okay!" that suggested he was glad somebody else had figured it out for him. 

So I went online for some ghospiration -- even though I'm pretty sure all I need is a white sheet and a pair of scissors -- and was horrified to find that apparently some people actually buy ghost costumes for their children:

Crappy, creepy ghost costumes that bare far too close of a resemblance to something a Klan member would wear for my comfort. 

Or, you could choose to go the "friendly" ghost route:

I guess the smattering of patchwork makes that worth $20 plus shipping...you know how those friendly ghosts are always patching themselves up, right?

I feel like buying your child a ghost costume is sort of like admitting that you let your kids eat Velveeta cheese slices for breakfast...like you just couldn't be bothered to find something better. 

I mean, if you're going to buy a costume, get some bang for your buck. Buy something that would have been nearly impossible to make yourself (read: anything other than a ghost). If nothing else, it will make you feel less guilty for not being crafty.