Halloween Scrooge

I am seriously a bad mom. A really, really bad mom. Why? I have not even started helping my kids with their Halloween costumes.

I’ll stand right here while you hurl rotting jack-o-lanterns at me.

I come from a line of seamstresses. Every year I wore a handmade costume that my mother had been working on for months. There was the one year that I was a princess in a gown my mother sewed herself. My crown was made of cardboard, wrapped in shiny silver foil. My wand was a cardboard star covered in glitter. On my feet were dainty pink ballet shoes. I was BEAUTIFUL! My sister was a clown that year, wearing a multi-colored jumpsuit with plush pom-poms on her chest. She had a brilliant wig that didn’t totally stay on her head the whole time, but was still available to complete the costume. And of course, she had the big red nose. There was the year that my mom sewed 5 bunny costumes for each of us to wear so we could go as a family of rabbits. Those rabbit costumes were integrated into our costumes for years to follow, so versatile they were. Basically, every year my mom would go all out in making sure that we viewed Halloween as an ultra-special night by making it a huge deal through the work she put into our costumes.

I tried to follow suit. There was one year that I tried my own hand at creating a costume for my daughter. I got out the puffy paints and needle and thread and created a fairy princess costume for my daughter that I was ultra proud of. And it almost stayed completely together all night long. But as the years went on, my zest for Halloween costume creations waned a bit as I came to the understanding that craftiness just doesn’t come naturally for me. I started going store-bought, spending too much money on a costume they would only wear once, and grow out of by the next year.

Note: here is a great place for me to remind you that you can donate your kids’ past costumes to kids in need. See HERE for details.

Eventually, I stopped even buying their costumes.

“What are you going to be for Halloween this year?” I asked my son this year.

“I want to go as an army guy. Wait, maybe I’ll go as a monster. Um, no. I’m going as the Scream guy with blood coming out of his mask,” were his answer(s).

“Whatever. But just know that I’m not buying anything. You’re going to have to create a costume out of whatever you can find in the house.”

Yup. I’m a bad mom.

At any rate, we have about 10 days left until the big holiday is finally here. And judging by my kids’ lack of proper Halloween attire, I will probably be hitting up the thrift stores over the weekend (on the heels of my Halloween Thrift Stores articles, I became aware that the Welfare League in Santa Rosa just got in a whole slew of costume pieces that they are selling for so much less than your average Halloween costume shop). I mean, who wants to be the parent of the kid going door-to-door begging for candy wearing a sweatshirt with the word “Costume” scrawled across it?

Any other bad moms out there totally lacking in the Halloween costume area?