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We’ve been generous with the Halloween posts this year: Ten Epic Costumes, DIY Decorations, Gruesome Party Food, and plenty of Sweet Talk. So let’s keep that theme going with today’s installment in our Friday series. Tell us about your greatest costumes – the most elaborate, the most unusual, the most universally enjoyed.
Costumes I remember: Big Bird (Halloween, 1981 ====>), a Honker, a mummy, Hulk Hogan, and – during my beefy period – The Skipper, which only made sense standing next to my First Mate Gilligan. Separated, I was just a dude in a blue shirt and goofy hat.
And as a follow-up, we’ll take any stories you’ve got about trick-or-treaters. I just found this short recap of my Halloween from a couple years back:
The Suburban Halloween Report
November 1, 2005
I was only home for three trick-or-treat rings of my doorbell last night, but each fascinated me.1. At 8:02 PM, a “kid” stopped by, alone, wearing a cape. He was pushing 20. Despite having my permission to “grab a handful,” this crusader took just one bag of Sour Patch Kids and, at my urging, a Tootsie Pop.
2. At 8:45 PM, I had my second visitor: a middle-schooler wearing a red t-shirt with the words “Skittles Candy” lazily ironed on. Even if executed brilliantly, this was a crappy costume. She was half-assing Halloween in every respect. Never even said trick-or-treat. To be fair, she couldn’t say anything to me, since she was talking on her cell phone. She took one Butterfinger. I did not offer her more.
3. Finally, at 9:37 PM, a group of four tweens dropped in. I have no idea what they were supposed to be; they looked like remnants of a more elaborate group costume. Perhaps other members of this group — members whose roles were essential — weren’t allowed to stay out past 9:30 on a school night. They sensed Halloween’s end was near and shamelessly horded my remaining candy.
Let’s do this again next year.
Comments (21)
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My dad always crafted amazingly intricate costumes, and wouldn’t ever let me be anything cliche like a witch, or cat. One year I was a Hershey Kiss. He made a cardboard frame, and covered the whole thing with foil. I even had a little hat with the “tail” on top. One year I was a traffic light, with red, yellow, and green saran wrap “light holes”. My best though (and this was all my weird idea) was a lamp. I wore a poofy blue skirt that resembled a lamp bottom, and a lampshade on my head. The best part though- I wore a flesh coloured skull cap covering up my hair, with 100 Watts written on it. I looked like a freak but got tons of candy.
posted by Molly on 10-26-2007 at 10:56 am
One year I’d had very few come to my door, I lived at the end of the last street in our subdivision, and there just weren’t that many kids. Two “big kids” came, I gave them a good handful of candy and they went on their way.
Fast forward a few months – I go out to my car one January morning to find a note on my car. It happened to be my birthday, so I felt quite special for about two seconds.
“Since I first saw you on Halloween I can’t forget you. I see you every day and think you’re so beautiful”. I’d gone to a party later that night. Was it someone from there? Where else would he see me? Everyday? I read on. It became explicit. He closed with “If you want to have sex with me, please call me at 555-1234. Love, Lee” I called the cops.
The cops called him right from my living room. It was my TEENAGE NEIGHBOR from across the street – one of my trick-or-treaters. He’d been watching me for three months???? Shudder. The next year I just left my light off. Now I live in a building where there aren’t any kids so I just buy candy and eat it myself.
posted by bettycat on 10-26-2007 at 11:14 am
The most politically incorrect costume ever – the year was 1964. My next door neighbor, my sister and I went as a pack of Tarryton cigarettes ( “I’d rather fight than switch!”) – the neighbor was the pack and we were two individual cigarettes. Completing the outfit, we sported a black eye each, as per the advertisement at the time.
Thankfully, we did not grow up to be smokers or fighters.
I remember having to go the bathroom so bad while trick-or-treating that my back teeth were floating. Don’t remember what I did about it.
posted by Karen on 10-26-2007 at 11:26 am
I’ve been some outstanding costumes over the years. My finest hour…
A box of tissues. Straight up Kleenex box in 4th grade, which would make it oh, 1994. My dad helped me make it… it was a refrigerator box, with fabric around the neck sticking up like a tissue- he had used some industrial spray starch-glue to get it to do that.
The next year I was a piece of cake. It was a box with one side removed, fashioned into cake. I painted it brown and once again, dad to the rescue with spray foam insulation (that hardens but still looks “creamy”) as the frosting. I remember being mad because I wanted Vanilla cake with Chocolate frosting, but the spray foam looked like vanilla so I had to settle. I also painted a large candle on my face.
Other additions over the years have been a lobster, a candy corn, Quail Man, Don King (don’t ask), and Jan Brady.
posted by Kelly on 10-26-2007 at 11:34 am
One year I went as Jimmy Hendricks “Purple Haze!” Purple gown hair, shoes…the works!! It was great!
posted by mary on 10-26-2007 at 12:06 pm
When my brother and I were young my mom would sew us costumes from a Simplicity or Butterick pattern – how lucky we were!
Some of my favorites: My brother as a Star Trek (TNG) officer, me as a reindeer, me as Tinker Bell, my brother as a wizard, me as a bumblebee, and both of us as a bunny rabbit (same costume, different years).
Looking back on it I feel a bit sad – I’m not as good at sewing as my mom, but I want my kids to have spectacular costumes too…
posted by Katherine on 10-26-2007 at 12:13 pm
My family is Southern Baptist, so growing up my brother and I were generally not allowed to partake in Halloween festivities (except for the “Hallelujah Party” at our church.) Eventually my little bro and I were able to pitch big enough fits that our parents started letting us go Trick-or-Treating as long as we dressed as Bible characters or animals. So from the ages of 5 and 7 up until we were about 10 and 12 we ended up as either Mary and Joseph or a sheep and a shepard. It was really embarrassing and to this day I try to avoid conversations about childhood Halloweens with my peers. (Except this one, obviously!)
posted by Marta on 10-26-2007 at 12:22 pm
Last year I dressed up as old school comic book X-men Rogue. Best costume I ever made.
My co-workers decided to follow my lead last minute for a group costume contest and came in as wolvereen, storm, cyclops, and we made a bald guy who didnt dress up stay in his chair and call himself the professor.
posted by Diane on 10-26-2007 at 12:25 pm
One year I went as a bag of jelly beans. Involed a clear lawn leaf bag, cut holes for your legs and arms, step in, fill bag with blown up bright colored balloons and close off at your neckline.
Costumes I made for my kids: my poor oldest son has been a deck of cards, a can of campbells soup, R2D2. We always made the costumes out of things we had in the house – no craft store purchases (other than paint or markers). We had a blast!
posted by JaneM on 10-26-2007 at 12:27 pm
my personal best costume was a box of french fries. Picture a cardboard box, with piece of foam sticking out. Paint the cardboard box mcdonalds style, find a pair of suspenders somewhere (I think mine were hot pink…) and pull it over your head. I had a piece of foam (french fry) sticking out of my head too. it was great. couldn’t sit down, but it was really fun. and homemade.
When I was about 3, my mom made us into peacocks. She got a bunch of peacock feathers, and sewed them to the butts of some old leotards. Then sewed peacock feathers to headbands. That was it. But it was a great costume because it was very different, and we felt pretty with the feathers. got a lot of attention.
Oh, and one year in high school I went as mad cow disease. I got one of those cow costumes with the udders sticking straight out of your stomach, added fairy wings, a clown wig, horns, hobo teeth, roller skates and fake scars on my face. people just stared. I loved it.
posted by Jenny on 10-26-2007 at 12:56 pm
When I was a senior in high school I went as The Dancing Queen from that ABBA song. I was young and sweet and only seventeen! I wore my grandmother’s old hot pants that were bright orange with hot pink, bright yellow, and neon green dots all over them. I teased up my hair, wore a tiara, and carried around a tamborine. It was great!
On another note, last year we just had a few trick-or-treaters come to our house. One group of boys didn’t really look like they had dressed up at all but they were some of our first trick-or-treaters so we gave them some candy anyways. Then a group of tween girls came and took my picture while I held out the candy. I thought that was a little odd and am wondering if it will happen again this year.
Oh and you’re welcome for getting Dancing Queen stuck in your head for the rest of the day!
posted by CB on 10-26-2007 at 1:00 pm
In 1966, my mom decided I should be Phyllis Diller for Halloween. She made a gold lame’ zip-front minidress, and I wore black tights, and white gogo boots (I’d kill for boots like that today! They were COOL). She made a long “cigarette holder” out of an ink pen and she teased the hell out of my hair and put a lot of makeup on me. I was fairly shy and almost too embarrassed to function. We went to the park contest where I won first place, much to my dismay. All the adults pointed and laughed at me. I wanted to die. Second place went to some creative guy who put something on top of his head to make him about 7 feet tall with a cut off neck (he wore a giant overcoat) and he carried his head. The newspaper photo shows me, age 5, staring up fixedly at the monster towering over me. The side view showed off my teased hair to it’s best advantage and I managed to hold my cigarette holder out at a jaunty angle. It’s a great photo. I hated wearing the outfit but I still have a thing for white boots.
posted by bettycat on 10-26-2007 at 1:44 pm
One year I was a bunch of grapes. My mother and I rigged up coat hangers into a frame around my body and attached purple balloons to it. Then I dressed in green tights, shorts and shirt, and voila! Of course, trick or treating in that turned out to be somewhat cumbersome, so by the end of the night I was a persone dressed in green on rollerblades. But I had had my glory moment!
posted by cousin on 10-26-2007 at 2:33 pm
“Plaid.” When I was 11, I decided to dress as “plaid” that year and painstakingly painted my face in a plaid pattern, wore a plaid Elmer Fudd hat, a plaid shirt, plaid pants, and plaid patterned shoes (apparently widely available in 1995). This only recently topped last Halloween, when I teased and snarled my hair and put a small, plastic bird within the matted mess on my head. Whenever anyone asked what I was “supposed to be”, I would cough uncontrollably and fall to floor – an apparent “bird flu victim”.
posted by Carrie Jo on 10-26-2007 at 2:37 pm
Let’s not, and say we did.
posted by Patrick B on 10-26-2007 at 3:38 pm
i have had some great costumes over the years.
i started making my own about the time i turned 12 or so.(mostly because my parents would not give me money to buy a real costume)
last year i had not one costume, but FOUR.
my boyfriend is a makeup artist, so he helped with one, but the rest were all me.
the first night we went as zombies (he latexed up my face so that my skin looked rotted and peeling), the next night he went as a zombie hunter that had been bitten and put a lot of detail into the bite wound on his arm, so much so that people thought that he had really been bitten by a person, and i was a clubber that got attacked and so i had bright raver clothes on and fake blood splattered all over me.
next i was an alien on vacation. i painted my face and arms grey-green and put glitter on top of that and wore a loud hawaiian tee shit and khakis.
and then on halloween proper i was somethign else but for the life of me i can’t remember what because i was far too drunk. lol
this year might just top it though, because we are going as a silent hill doctor and nurse, my costume mostly modeled on the movie, so my head (front and back) is a mass of knotted burn tissue, you can’t really see the eye sockets, and the clothing is going to look like it is made of rotten flesh.
niiiiiiice.
posted by Sue on 10-26-2007 at 5:47 pm
My mom sewed everyone of my costumes in middle school. The best though was in 3rd grade when I was Sailor Mars from Sailor moon. She didn’t have a pattern so she took a really long time with it but, when it was done it was the best costume ever!
posted by Rachel* on 10-26-2007 at 10:20 pm
I’ve had some pretty awesome costumes. When I was little, I was a “Blue duck of happiness”. I guess I wanted to be a bluebird and my mom used a duck pattern to make it…it was pretty darn cute. For the past few years, I’ve made my own costumes. I’ve made a frog, a flamingo, and a lion. This year, I made a lobster costume. I’m pretty excited.
posted by leofishy on 10-26-2007 at 11:10 pm
One year at the stable I had a horse at we decided to take some of the horses trick or treating in the local neighborhood. I was about 27.
All these costumes are on horses – we had Malibu Ken and Barbie complete with a hula skirt and coconut bra. On the ponies we had a bride a groom. And the goat we took with was a devil.
Because I was leading the goat Norman who was the smallest I got to go up and ring the door bells.
We got carrots and apples for the horses. The horses also took advantage of the front yard grass and Norman trimmed everyone’s bushes and flowers. We also got some candy for us.
We got to the end of the block, it was getting dark so we started to head back to the stable when the cops turned down the street. They were doing a saftey check and handing out glow sticks.
Well the horses had already headed back and I was talking with the cops getting a couple glow sticks from them with Norman the goat in the ditch eating the grass. Because it was dark the cops couldn’t see what exactly he was so they asked if I was leading a Bull Mastif dog. I said nope – this is Norman the goat, want to pet him. I have never seen cops so suprised. I explained we were from down the street at the stable and if they were going to continue down the street to watch out for the horses.
I had a good laugh at the cops. That was one of the best trick or treating times I’ve ever had.
posted by Beth on 10-27-2007 at 6:42 am
My best costume ever was when I was Captain Crunch. I just made myself a hat out of blue paper, a mustache out of white paper, and wore my double breasted coat. I would use cotton as mustache if I did again, but it was seriously the best thing I’ve ever been for Halloween.
posted by Janel on 10-28-2007 at 12:15 am
I have red hair, and my mother properly exploited that fact for the first 6 or 7 years of my life in my Halloween costumes. I remember being a pumpkin and Raggedy Ann, but apparently there were several other red hair-themed costumes in there. As an adult (that would be since 11th grade, so about 9 years) I have been a butterfly. With the same exact costume all those years. But to my credit, my mom and I made the costume together, and it’s quite nice (and simple).
Last year, for my school’s “harvest festival,” I was on my way to the party (not actually at the school) and I fell off my bike (I live in China and don’t own a car) and landed on my face. I got stitches later that night (after being seen by a doctor at the harvest festival-he did the stitches at his apartment) but went to the party with a really nasty busted-up lip. People thought it was my costume- and I properly secured my position as the most clumsy individual at the school.
posted by greenstrawberries on 10-29-2007 at 3:06 am