Got Costume?

That pretty girl Tiffany over at SITS got me thinking about Halloween (they're having a giveaway for a brand spanking new Canon that I hope to win so that I can take great pics of a certain little someone's 1st birthday).  This is my first Halloween with my frog princess (who incidentally will be dressed as a frog princess tomorrow complete with a fabulous tutu from Lizzy's Boutique). I always loved Halloween, loved dressing up, the thrill of finding the right costume.  As I got older, it became a group event.  When I worked at Scholastic Book Fairs there was always a contest and in my department, we always found ways to weave the books that were in the fairs into the costume selection.

As a child, I was always up for a good costume.  I participated in a lot of school plays and musicals and so always had a new personality handy.  I remember having my very own costume designer. Yes, I was a little diva.  I looked forward to Halloween and remember the one year that I disobeyed my mami and as punishment, didn't get to dress up.  That's the only punishment I remember as a child (well that and the one when I kinda set the apartment on fire but, I digress).

Last year was difficult.  I was on bed rest after going into early labor and Onidis would not give me permission to go to any Halloween parties.  Even after I promised to be in a wheelchair.  I was upset.  I mean, how many times in this life will I be 8 months pregnant during Halloween?!  I could be a pregnant nun with a real belly!  But I had bigger aspirations.  I was planning on being a pregnant zombie.  I had it all figured out in my head. I would get a doll's arm and sew t on to my gown so it looked like my zombie baby was coming out of my belly.  The appropriate amount of blood would be on my costume.  It would've been GREAT and I would've won whatever friggin' costume contest I entered.  But alas, I was home.  Not even waddling to the door to hand out the candy.

This year, I think I will only sport fairy wings as I head on out with the baby.  I am a little upset because I realized that in my nesting frenzy last year, I disposed of one very important piece of luggage.  We'd just moved to the new house in July and the garage still held all the crap that didn't go into the rooms in the house.  I'd asked my sister to come over and help me clean things up a little.  I looked at the antiquated luggage and made a hormone-induced decision.  "Put in on the curb" I said.  I distantly remember her giving me a weird look but perhaps I'm recreating this in my head.  She didn't argue too much with me and so I blame her for this now.  I had decided to throw out the costume wardrobe that had taken me years to put together.

How could I have been so stupid!?!  Did I really get rid of the western style dress I got at a thrift store for like $5?  Was the dead cheerleader outfit in there too?  And what about my kick ass Cleopatra hooded cape that I hand decorated? Shit!  I am kicking myself for that now.  But there is not much I can do.

The good news is that now I get to shop for 2 costumes. One for me and one for the frog princess. Not just for Halloween.  We need to build up our costume wardrobe for dress up time!  I will miss those old costumes terribly.  But I'm sure we will find some awesome costumes in the near future.

Thinking back, the best group costume (and the one for which we won the much desired Frankenstein Creepy hand trophy for) was the dead cheerleaders.  I even made up a cheer (including the video here for your enjoyment).  This was 7 years ago (ugh! Why is time passing so quickly).  It was funny because we never won when we dressed up cute and dainty (though one of our best years was when we dressed up as a boxed set of the Royal Diaries).  With the dead cheerleaders though, we rocked it.  We even got our brand new director to dress up in a skirt (most boys are not up for this but we quickly found out that Eric was not your average director and he made the team that much better!).

Check out the The Dead Cheerleaders performance.

I am looking forward to many Halloweens to come and know that now, it's a whole different ball game. I won't lose my creativity though, and I will use this time to teach my daughter that anything is possible.  I want her to push her imagination to the limit.  I can do that, you know. With one swirl of my wand and a little sprinkling of pixie dust (both of which, I own).

So the question for this year is...got costume?  And if so, what will it be?