What are we all going to be for Halloween!

[moogg]

ok, humor me!

In my job, I have to dress up. I am going as Malificent the evil queen from Snow White. My costume is awesome!! Gotta love the Disney store clearance sales..

[Tuffy]

I have been told I'm going to a halloween party in a couple weeks. If I can't get out of it, I'm wearing all black, with a black cape and carrying a staff we have around the house with a horrible demon head on top of it.

I guess in other words, I'll just go as myself.

I'm just not into dressing up for Halloween.

[poolman]

I've only dressed up twice for Halloween, once as an awesome Lone Ranger and one time to amuse the kids I dressed as a rodeo clown when I took them trick or treating. I will never again wear a complete face paint. It itches like crazy and if you scratch it everything smears together.

[moogg]

Good one, Tuffy! :D

[2ndWind]

I usually answer the door dressed in a witch's costume that I made eons ago. The younger trick-or-treaters are usually scared of the mask, so I take it off if I can see through the window that they're under a couple of feet tall. We hardly get any trick-or-treaters anymore. :( When my kids were little, the doorbell rang every five minutes!

[BriarRose]

hmm the last time I dressed up for Halloween was when I was......maybe 12? Halloween was never too big a deal for us, just a bag of candy. Now it seems to be for adults and kids who all dress up in Harry Potter crap but whose parents are so paranoid they take them to the mall. I have not seen a kid in a creative costume in years. George is going to a dance and plans to wear the horrid dress her dad's girlfriend bought her for Xmas that looks like Morticia Adams. She made a cool feather mask to go with it.

I did once get a kick out of my crazy ex mother in-law who was a b*tch is a side car but did have a good sense of humor. The Klampett family had all gotten religion one year and were attending a church where everyone was to come to a "harvest" festival dressed as bible characters. She went as The Devil.

[poolman]

We all hate to see our kids grow up and realize that the tooth fairy and Santa Clause are make believe... but Halloween is just free candy! :)

[single dad]

Never purchased a costume for any of the kids. Some required a week or two to asssemble, others less so. But the kids really got in to it, almost as much as I did.

When we lived in Germany, we found that the younger Germans were figuring out this strange American custom, and a lot of them went along quite creatively in the costume thing, too. We usually had far more German kids show up at our house then we had Americans. A lot of those old State Department families were so uptight, most of their kids never went out on Halloween.

For a couple years, I dressed up with a "dienst mantel" that ubiqitous blue mid-length German workers coat, picked up a beer driver's cap, and went out "trick-or-beer-ing." Carried an empty German plastic beer case, the 20 bottle size, and as the kids knocked on the doors and said "trick or treat" I followed up as they got their candy with "trick or beer." My last year in Germany I ended up with six free cases of beer on Halloween. Would love to try that this year around here, don't know if the local blue laws allow it, though, and I have no kids to escort, either.

These days, I'd probably just go out as a sour-puss peppered-grey over the hill old guy.

Much easier to find a costume for that, too.

[CheroCreek]

Not sure yet what I'll be doing for Halloween. I usually go up to JAX to take the kids out for trick-or-treat. However, as my youngest daughter is here and still not wanting to speak to or see her mother I doubt she'll want to go.

I'll keep an eye out for any decent Halloween parties that may be going on here for my daughter. That way I can go to JAX to be with the other two for the holiday.

[aires24]

I dread dressing up for Halloween. I'm just not that good at it, but seem to always get talked into dressing up. Not this year.

[magic-cat]

What are we all going to be for Halloween?

I'm going to be a door answerer/candy hander-outer in California.

Going out there to take care of two parents having surgeries at the same time, so I doubt I'll be dressing up.

But I'd like to be a fairy princess. :)

[willowtree]

I only dress if I'm going to a party, but most of the time I hang out @ home and give out candy and wait for grandson to show up ;-)

My D24, though.... she is dressing her CAT. As a lobster.... LOL, the costume is SO cute.

[ghead1]

We usually "do up" our house for Halloween, we have boxes of stuff saved that we have made/bought over the years: headstones, dungeon walls, skeltons, witches etc. Using barrels and power drills, mr ghead usually makes a monster whose head spins around. If there are real young kids we don't do that part as they run away screaming. I have 11 pumpkins to carve in the next few weeks!

Depending on how work went that day, I'll either wear my witches hat or my nightgown :-)

[Bluefish]

We'll just hand out teeth-destroying candy to all the little urchins in the neighborhood, plus the ones who come from poorer neighborhoods. The ones who truck in bother a lot of people, but who cares? One night a year.....come on. Ditto the "big" kids who are trying to be little kids for one last time in their lives. They'll laugh at themselves when they think back on't.

[Bluefish]

My dentist said this morning she bought her costume over the weekend and will go as a bohemian stripper. Hm.

If I were at that party I wouldn't get fresh with her. She'd probably whip out a portable drill.

[RealTime]

Blue --

"If I were at that party I wouldn't get fresh with her. She'd probably whip out a portable drill."

Uh ...... that's not a drill.

[zuzuzu]

I won't be dressing up but I will walk about 4 blocks to a house in my neighborhood that has been the Halloween house for about 15 yrs. It is owned by 2 bachelore electrical engineers... one guy actually owns the house and his brother owns the one next door. They fill the entire yard with computer-driven robots and special effects: light shows, tombstones that have voice recognition software (you say your name and it shows you how and when you die), entire tableaux of robotic pirates and scenes that move and have sound tracks, dry ice cauldrons, etc. They built a dinosaur that had a seat in it; a kid sits in a bucket contraption and the dinosaur lifts them onto the other brother's lawn and brings them back again. One year they had a train with tracks over the 2 yards and you could ride around in the dark..... There is not one inch of the yard that doesn't have some kind of optical illusion, chemical reaction or other special effect going on. Full Hollywood costumes, too.

The police close off the street and people come from miles around to see it. They also hand out candy but you have to endure laser flashes and other effects to get it. After all they do (it takes about a month for them to set up), they still give out candy. Their generosity is extraordinary.

The neighbors in the near vicinity must hate it... that one street is swarmed with thousands of trick or treaters....

[willowtree]

Sounds amazing!
Do they do anything for Christmas?

[lexicon]

Yes sir,..."remember when we was kids". Yup, when we was kids, it wasn't so dangerous, or scarey, costumes were easy,...ok-we sound like our parents. Mind you, I just spent 2 weeks at a gated senior community in Orlando, where the "poolside" mucica songs are the ones wewe listened to as kids....Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bread. What's worse is I qualify to live there in 3 years due to my age:eek: !

Considering shopping (and crime semingly) is the economy in Orlando and T-shirts reign,...our cosuimes are T-shirts, My boys t=shirts say, "This is my costume" . Mine reads: "Too cute to spook":D >>>which I'kk probably donate to my bf's daughter's wardrobe!

The question this Halloween: Do we dress up as Republicans or Democrats?:confused:

[Bluefish]

Blue --

"If I were at that party I wouldn't get fresh with her. She'd probably whip out a portable drill."

Uh ...... that's not a drill.

What am I missing, RT?.....something went right over my head.....

[Amazonite]

I work at a school, our mascot is a tiger... so every year I get away with an orange Tshirt, a pair of tiger ears, and black eyeliner nose, whiskers and cat-eye makeup. I may even invest in a tail this year.

[zuzuzu]

Sounds amazing!
Do they do anything for Christmas?

No, nothing for XMas. What they do for Halloween is SO creative.... I think they have fewer constraints to their imagination.... I hope they have R2D2 again this year... he looks just like the original Star Wars robot and he wheels himself around the street "talking" to people. Maybe they could put a Santa hat on him and let him loose in the neighborhood for Christmas.

[CheroCreek]

I think I'll just dress as my usual self. For some that scary enough. :)

[Booktender]

As is my custom, I will don a dowdy outfit and my broadbrimmed black dress hat. I then channel what era of Margaret Thatcher's life I'm representing. One year I had a dowdy knee-length skirt and blazer on and I wore clogs. I was Margaret Thatcher - The War Years. The year Reagan died I was Margaret Thatcher - In Mourning.

I have to take off my hat when I start working because we have a "no hats" rule. It really makes it hard for people to figure out who I am without the hat!

[still mamom]

I'm hosting a big Halloween party (kids & adults). I'm thinking of dressing as a "gangsta rapper" but I'm open to other suggestions. My d12 & niece 18 (currently spending most nights here) want to help me with the gansta costume for the sheer pleasure of watching d19 flip out when she sees her mom with baggy pants falling off my hips and boxer shorts sticking out. Maybe I'll get a grill for my teeth and really make her crazy!

[PoignéeUnique]

I'm dressing up as the Principality of Liechtenstein. I don't claim that I can exactly replicate the full-size principality, but I think I can pull it off at a reasonable scale.

[CheroCreek]

I just saw a costume that got me laughing my a$$ off. It was a Dick Cheny mask with a plastic shotgun. Now that's scary. :)

[Tiddly]

now that's funny Chero! I bet that gets worn a LOT this season!

[2ndWind]

Halloween Hangman....make sure your speakers are on.

http://www.dedge.com/flash/hangman/hangman.swf

[2ndWind]

We have a black cat that has to be kept inside all day (and last night) since it's Halloween. She is NOT happy about it and is making anyone who's at home with her miserable. :(

[steamy]

I'm glad you are keeping her safe, creepy though that you have to...Is her name Spooky? I think all black cats should be named Spooky, if they are not black they are all Kitty to me. Except for Darwin, who is a work in progress....

[Bluefish]

Someone said I was worse than a square.

So I'm putting on a box and going as a cube.

[CheroCreek]

We just stayed home and ate pizza and candy. :)

[Amazonite]

We did the pizza thing too.

I bought a metric ass-ton of candy, because SO was convinced that we'd be inundated with trick-or-treaters, and consequently have nearly a metric ass-ton left over. We had three witches, one kittycat, a zombie, Zorro, and a soccer player as trick-or-treaters (I'm not counting the Superman dad who escorted a witch and the kittycat, since I didn't give him any candy).

[Bluefish]

We bought too much candy so the remainder (about half) was bagged and is headed for the vacuum cleaner (the office folk).

We had some really cute kids--even the teenagers were polite. The littlest kids just melt your heart. The only thing that saddens me is what some of their parents must be thinking--could this be the person who might go after my youngster for who-knows-what?

I know I'd be thinking like that. Knowing that 99.99% of the folks we would meet are decent people, these days you still have to wonder, especially when you think about those lists of sex offenders' addresses that they post in many states. I'll bet where those exist, parents print out the addresses and stay away...or should.

[PoignéeUnique]

I'm at home last night handing out candy, dressed in my Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey sweater. So this 8-year-old punk shows up at my door wearing a Montreal Canadiens hockey jersey. I take our bowl of candy and tell him he gets three pieces from my bowl. Then I tell him that I get 10 pieces from his bag because he's dressed like such a sissy. He starts jawing, so I tell him the offer is now one piece from my bowl and 20 pieces from his bag. I also comment parenthetically that Guy LaFleur was an effeminate wuss who couldn't hold Davey Keon's jockstrap.

Those were, in hindsight, fighting words.

He dropped his gloves, I dropped mine and then it got kind of ugly. Luckily a bunch of 12-year olds dressed as referees were passing by ... they waded into the brawl and pulled the little bastard off of me just as I was about to yank his sweater over his head and start whaling away.

Anyway, the upshot is that I'm facing a 3 Halloween suspension and have to forfeit all the candy I took out of kids' loot bags last night.

[lexicon]

WTG PU ! We lock the door and turn off the lights. Personally, I think it not a good idea to encourage children to go begging at stranger's doors. :D

[PoignéeUnique]

I'm beginning to agree, lexicon.

It's not so bad that every window on my house now has a Montreal Canadiens logo crudely rendered with soap. What gets me is what they did to my car while I was away meeting with the Halloween commissioner. I guess that little 8-year-old and his buddies came back with a sledgehammer, some Bondo and a few gallons of paint. My Acura now looks exactly like the Zamboni machine at Montreal's Bell Centre.

[dollygirl]

Where I live, the police did a sting trick-or-treat on registered sex offenders. Anyone who had lights on with decorations, etc. or answered the door for trick or treat got busted.

Now that's scarey.

[steamy]

LOL PU. I hope you are prepared to be pelted with candy corn when ever you leave the house, better get out the freddy mask for protection...

Dolly at first I thought you were kidding, guess not..Whatta world , Whatta world, I think we are all melting....

So how many did they nab? That is most of the fear isn't it, that our kids are going to child molesters house for candy...Egads...

[kara.]

Awww... you guys are making Halloween sound like a scary holiday or something....the day I check the sex offender registry before trick or treating is the day we give up on it, or just start trick or treating at the mall, I suppose.

That said of course we go to areas of our neighborhood which are kind of known as the super trick or treating bonanza...a couple of U-shaped streets with no traffic where nearly all the houses totally get into the spirit of decorating the houses, dressing up, and unloading tons of candy on the kids and there are absolute mobs of kids (younger ones with parents) trick or treating. Every one has a good time. Nothing "scary" that I've ever heard of transpires. My little "witch" had a great time and I enjoy the few aspects of the holiday which aren't totally co-opted by Disney Princess or the Malls...people actually go outside, on foot, and interact with other people, some of whom they don't know personally, and haven't done background checks on.

There has to be a way to be "safe" without eliminating all aspects of childhood that involve fun, and reasonable risk taking.

[2ndWind]

There has to be a way to be "safe" without eliminating all aspects of childhood that involve fun.

Agreed. S24 works for a city rec program and they put on a Halloween carnival every year in the park: game booths, music, contests, etc. He says that people are begging to come in at 9 pm (when it closes). Long live Halloween and the ability to dress up and be offered candy once a year.

[PoignéeUnique]

AAss mmuucchh aass II lloovvee HHaalloowweeeenn,, wwhhaatt II rreeaallyy lliikkee iiss tthhee ssuuggaarr rruusshh tthhee nneexxtt ddaayy

[Booktender]

Doggone it, PU, your warm tale brought those happy memories of Halloween strolls with Dad back to the surface again. I'm gettin' all sniffly.

[dollygirl]

steamy - they nabbed two guys. But it was for alcohol violation, not the sex offender thing.

[Booktender]

Even 47 years ago we never went to the houses of people we didn't know. Kind of took care of the scare factor. We also spent a lot of time just chatting to the neighbors as we stopped for candy. It never occurred to me that I could go to all the houses.

Last night I missed that warmth and acceptance and the low voices of the adults and my Daddy. A lot. I remember the fun of dressing up and how interesting it was to get all that candy. And I remember candy being the main goal of the evening. But mostly I remember the safe feeling of being with my brothers and Dad and the older neighbors who made over us so much.

I remember the fun Mom and I had one year making ninja costumes for The Lad and his best friend. They were 13 that year and it was the first year his Dad put down his foot and said they COULD NOT go out alone because now they were old enough to be dangerous unsupervised. That gave me a giggle.

I have a box in which I keep some fabric remnants from my wedding dress and some pictures of the day (only 1 of which has The Lad's Dad in it!) and I also have all the pictures of The Lad that I have in it. Those were darn good costumes.

[CheroCreek]

You had to give back the candy?! Wow, PU, that stinks. :rolleyes:

[OnSolidPath]

But it was for alcohol violation.

So they were trying to share the "spirit" of the night?:rolleyes:

[ghead1]

well, I'm in Amazonite's camp. (including the pizza!) We normally have upward of 100 trick or treaters, so we had bunches of candy. Over half of it is left. I'm not bringing it to work because I'll eat it here! But we had less than 50, smaller groups, and they started really late.

Several kids were afraid to come to the door, one girl asked from the middle of the driveway "Is there anything that's going to pop up at me?". A few of the young ones ran away to the parents when the skeleton spoke to them...

c'mon kids, toughen up!

[OnSolidPath]

It's another night when I miss small town USA.

Growing up in a small Eastern WA town we trick or treated and received homemade goodies of all kinds--Popcorn balls tied up in waxed paper, carmel apples, cookies in pumpkin shapes with our names written in icing....going
into a neighbor's home when chilled, and having hot apple cider and being told a ghost story...

[PoignéeUnique]

Halloween always reminds me of my eldest daughter's very first trick or
treating experience.

The very first house we ever visited was, in retrospect, a very poor choice
on my part. As my daughter - looking ever so cute in the Princess
costume my Ex had made for her - politely recited the "Trick or Treat"
line we had diligently rehearsed, the straw dummy sitting lifelessly
on the porch sprang to life and jumped at her. This was probably the
first thing in my daughter's life that scarred her emotionally,
permanently and most of all, loudly.

My neighbour who had dressed up as the straw dummy was as freaked
out as my daughter, albeit for entirely different reasons.
No matter how much he offered her by way of apologies or candy, she
remained terrified. And seeing how much progress we were making on the
apology and explanation front, I very quickly decided to exercise
our surrender and retreat options.

That was, in its entirety, my daughter's first Halloween.

The next year, she discovered the chocolately goodness that is
Halloween and all was back to normal, Well, almost normal.
About 3 Halloweens passed before my daughter
would return to THAT house. As she turned from the sidewalk towards their
driveway, the lifeless straw dummy on the porch made certain to stand up and walk around, and say "Happy Halloween" to my daughter in a voice I think was
intended to mimic Santa Claus.

Maybe it was the tiger costume she was wearing that year, or maybe it was
three years of our neighbour going out of his way to be friendly to
my daughter, but the curse was lifted that night.
And I would bet that if my daughter ever takes her
kids on a tour of her childhood neighbourhood, she'll point out exactly two houses: the one she was born in, and the one she almost died in.

[lexicon]

That poor little girl ! What a cute story Unigue.

It so happens there was a costume party at athe hospital last year; the theme of the party was "war". The first person got up onto the stage and said, "I'm an atomic bomb." He got his applause and he steped down.

The second person got up and said, "I'm a hydrogen bomb." Again, there was applause and he steped down.

And then a naked little man climbed up on the stage and said, "I'm dynamite."

Everybody ran away hysterically. When one of them asked why, he said, "Didn't you see how small his fuse was?"

[steamy]

LOL Lexi! Poor little guy, must have been mortified!