Halloween

I love Halloween. I used to love Halloween infinitely more than Christmas, but now that I'm getting "old" I feel that maybe I'm losing my enthusiasm. Or maybe it's just because Halloween is on a Sunday this year, and it also kind of sneaked up on me. So this year I'm going as...a fairy princess...only without the princess part. Actually I'm just wearing a dress I already own and adding butterfly wings I bought at a costume shop in Cambridge. Did I mention I'm losing my enthusiasm? I wanted to be Jean Grey from the X-Men (the comic book, not the movie), but it was pretty last minute and all the good green spandex was gone.

I have had some pretty epic Halloween costumes over the years. Now I'm going to try to see if I can remember them.

1) Ghost: This was the first Halloween I can remember. It was pretty standard--sheet with holes in it.
2) Witch: This one actually came with pictures (not digital ones), and it was pretty darn cute. I was wearing a purple polka-dot outfit with a little cape, witch hat, and drawn-on freckles with brown eyeliner. Every time I smell that brand of eyeliner it brings back memories. Pretty cool.
3) Yellow Crayon: My sister was a red crayon. We wore hats of posterboard.

4) Princess: Dress, tiara, is there any little girl who doesn't dress as a princess at any point?

5) Ed Grimley: It was in fourth grade when I first realized that sometimes, people weren't going to get me. There's no power on earth that will put a picture of me in fourth grade on the Internet,

but this is what I was going for:

People thought I was a member of the Lollipop Guild.

6) Xena: Warrior Princess: This was a homemade epic adventure, all except for the wig, because at that point in the fifth grade I had super-short hair. I took my wig off during the party and one of the PTA moms thought I was a boy. I could have kept the prize that I won in the boys vs. girls contest, but I thought I'd make the lady feel guilty by saying "um...I'm a girl." I knew how to work the system, even as a ten-year-old.

7) The Phantom of the Opera: The sixth grade, my second adventure in All Hallows Eve crossdressing.
8) Ensemble member from the musical "Cats": Also pretty epic. Gotta love the smell of the greasepaint and the snugness of the spandex.

9) Witch (again): Eighth grade...so less adorable, more social-outcasty.

10) High School English Teacher: Completely unintentional. Nobody told me that my first youth church dance was a costume dance, so I put on a cute little blouse and a cute little skirt (which my mom made and it still fits me over ten years later--booyah!) and one of the boys told me I looked like his English teacher, so I went with it.

11) Goth: In high school one needs to stop being cute scary and more disaffected youthy. Not quite the time to slut it up yet (not that I ever did--shh!), but I was pretty good at the black eyeliner and scary look that made one of the moms cross herself when we came trick-or-treating.
12) Ambiguously-dead Prom Queen: Senior year; the first time I ever went to a high school Halloween Dance. I borrowed a cute little fifties-esque dress from the theatre's costume closet, put on some antique-looking jewelry, and accentuated my dark circles. Pretty fun.

13) "Slutty" Men's Chorus Member: When one enters the college years, one must embrace the mantra that it's every woman's prerogative to get a little bit skanky on All Hallows Eve. This was also a completely last-minute moment of brilliance on my part, fueled by the fact that I was invited to a party with a bunch of BYU choir nerds. I borrowed the tie from a former Men's Chorus member, and printed off the insignia from the "The Men's Chorus Crest is a Chick Magnet" Facebook page. And being BYU, I wasn't actually slutty, but I was told that if the Women's Chorus dressed like that, they'd probably sell more tickets to their concerts.

14) Goth (again): I was at a loss. It was really last minute and there was absolutely no good inspiration. I did succeed in getting my skin tone to match the wall, and I got a fun picture with Oaksie.

This blog might reveal the fact that I secretly call him "Oaksie."

15) Greek Goddess: This was not only handmade, but handsewn. And they gave the "Best Handmade Costume" prize to stupid cardboard robots. Lame.

15) Abby Sciuto (from "NCIS"): Forensic science meets Goth, well, I'm sure they've already met, but I decided to embody her for my first Halloween in Boston, for which I almost attended a party and passed out candy to kids, one of whom knew who I was.

To conclude, Halloween will always have a special place in my heart, even when I'm not doing anything spectacularly creative. Perhaps my next post will have pictures of me as a fairy.