I Blame My Mother...

My mother takes Halloween VERY seriously. She loves this "holiday" more than any other. When we were kids, she would dress up become "Wanda Witch" every year as All Hallow's Eve approached. During certain years, when parents are a total embarrassment no matter what they do, this was not my favorite thing about my mom... but before and after those years, I thoroughly enjoyed my mom's enthusiasm for the season.

Wanda Witch had many incarnations over the years - sometimes she had elaborate, creepy hand-painted masks made of papier mache and sometimes she had green face paint with wadded up paper towel bits and Elmer's glue for warts. I don't think she ever wore a "store bought" mask... and neither did we. I'm not actually sure if we even knew that store bought costumes even existed!

A as Kojak (the bald skin cap and lollipop disappeared
by this time) and me as Police Woman.

On Halloween evening, we would spend an hour or two figuring out what we were going to dress up as and rummaging through boxes and closets to put together an outfit. Never did we ever run to the store for a costume - it was the 80's and we were raised by a frugal, creative mom who just didn't even introduce that as an option. None of our friends wore store-bought costumes either. We would occasionally get some face paint but more likely we decorated our faces with burned corks or heavy red lipstick smudged onto our cheeks, flour to gray our hair or whiten our skin, and ketchup for fake blood. I don't recall ever being embarrassed by what we came up with - more often than not, we had the more creative outfits at the parties we attended because we had a mom at home who totally got into helping us create costumes. She never freaked out about a cut-up t-shirt or shredded jeans (as long as they weren't new ones) and she never gave us a hard time about smashing her lipsticks to bits or staining our clothes.

Latka (from Taxi), Chachi (Happy Days), Daisy Duke,
Marcia Brady & the Incredible Hulk

To this day, we enjoy celebrating Halloween. A few years ago, the first Halloween after we moved into the house, we hosted a pizza party for the neighborhood and asked everyone (including the adults) to come in costume. We spent hours putting together our Shrek & Fiona homemade costumes and painting our faces and necks green. When we greeted people at the door, we were disappointed... nobody (except for a few kids in store bought princess dresses or spider man pajamas) came in costume! Not a single adult even put a silly headband on or anything. Hrmph. We realized that we weren't in Kansas Vermont anymore where we'd had some fabulous Halloween parties including themed parties like 70's TV characters, animation characters etc.

Me as "Carpenter Ant"

Years before when I lived in CT, we had HUGE Halloween parties that people went all out for and made (rarely bought) the most incredible costumes as well. One year a friend of mine and I spent weeks making our costumes out of rug padding and spray paint - his was a praying mantis and mine was a carpenter ant. The following year I made a dragon costume out of the same material and after being harassed throughout the party by the art teacher from the local school, I finally donated it to the school. (I kind of wish I hadn't... I'd like to pull that thing out again one of these years.)

Those parties were SO much fun but we figured out quickly that clearly we don't have the same type of friends/neighbors here on Cape Cod. What a bummer.

A and me at the Jungleberry Ball & Testicle Festival

But... luckily we have a weirdo family and last year we held a party celebrating my nephew in-law's first anniversary of being free of testicular cancer by hosting the "Jungleberry Ball & Testicle Festival" on my brother and sister in-law's farm in TN. The party was a hoot and included an ugly dress contest for the ladies and an ugly vest contest for the gents. Some of the entries were fabulous - my nephew Matt found a faux leopard fur vest that was hideous, my niece Anna looked like she'd stepped right off the plantation with her big flower-print dress and complementary hat, my brother wore a Halloween themed sweater vest that I'm pretty sure our grade school librarian once wore, my sister in-law wore a black and pink shiny little number with a top hat - the entries were hilarious!

So... Halloween is just a few weeks away and we need to figure out some way to celebrate. Perhaps the carpenter ant will make another appearance... or perhaps I'll disappear into my workshop with some new materials and see what else I can come up with - I've got some old textile quills that would make a fabulous porcupine! One thing is for sure, we'll be the only adults on the block dressed up again... and that's okay because I know that in CT, despite recovering from hip surgery, Wanda Witch will find a way to ride again!