Boy, was Halloween weird this year. The younger children were pastel cows from the game Roblox, together with their neighbor who isn't in the picture. The cow spots are handmade, yes. And also the bucket hats (and their cow spots), using a pattern we borrowed from our neighbor (thank you, S!) Kate cut out all the cow spots with the good intention of stitching them on herself but the time crunch - not to mention the inanity of the task - moved me to help, which turned into Mother sewing on all the cow spots and Kate half-stitching and half-gluing the cow faces. It is not fun to sew cow spots on sleeves, let me say.
On the plus side, so that the girls can reclaim their clothes for other non-theatrical occasions, the cow spots are removable. The cow nostrils, sadly, not so much.
The costumes, though, were not the weird part. By that, I mean compared to some of costumes from past years, pastel cows are amusingly benign. And I loved working alongside Kate, not to mention only spending one night on the outfits instead of the typical three or four manic weeks. The weirdness in question was setting out a buffet table of candy for the neighborhood kids to help themselves from while the doorbell stayed eerily silent. The eldest child, who as of last year had decided she much preferred greeting trick-or-treaters at the door to going on a candy round herself, thus found herself obsolete this year, and stayed in her room working on her Etsy shop orders instead. It was all kinds of sad in a year already overrun with strangeness. That said, it's interesting what you discover when you let kids pick their own candy - judging from the copious amounts left on the table at the end of the evening, our neighborhood doesn't care for Twizzlers or Starbursts apparently. Even free, and set out where the house owners couldn't see you grab the whole bunch if you so wished. Huh.
That is fascinating re starbursts and Twizzlers. I would have picked those as a kid!
ReplyDeleteI had a little boy (~4 years old I think) come to our house last year on Halloween, stare solemnly at the bowl of candy, and ask, "Do you have any chocolate?" I usually do, but that year I didn't. I answered sorry, I didn't, and he sighed and said, "Oh well. I'll just go then. Thank you anyway." Very polite but so funny to me to just walk away like that!
I drove the kids to Idaho to celebrate with my equally quarantined sister for Halloween. Still very different but felt much closer to normal.
MaryAnne: I like Starbursts myself, too! Your Halloween sounds lovely, having been spent with people who are important to you. This year all our social engagements have gravitated toward that, which is good in old and new ways. The little boy is the funniest! So earnest and honest (and charming)!
DeleteOur Halloween was a bit different this year too... dd was the Powerpuff Girls with two friends at a small house party (7 kids total), and the original plan was for them to cut down some XL t-shirts in the right colors to make dresses, then black belts. I ended up doing all the work, but that's ok! She goes to a different school than those friends,, so she didn't want that for going to school on Friday; she wore a dress and cotton I had been testing the pattern for, and I made her a little hat with junky metal things from around the house, so she went as Steampunk girl.. Ds said no for weeks when I asked about costumes, then on Friday texted about a penguin mask...
ReplyDeleteChefreeni: Thank you for sharing your Halloween costume stories! I laughed at the bit about the penguin mask - I've lost track of the number of times one of my children has said, "No" and then "Yes" at the last minute, too!
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