In our house, we have allowed our daughter to pick out her
Halloween costume ever since she could talk. Little did I know it would turn
into years of me racking my brain, pulling out my hair and testing my limits, to
pull them off. Generally kids would say,
“I want to be a ghost or a pirate or a princess for Halloween.” Not my daughter she has always existed
outside of the box, with her thinking, and that is why I LOVE HER. For some reason, she has come up with ideas
for things, you would on no occasion, think to make into a costume, but WE DID! A decade of costumes and my offspring has
kept me on my toes for every single one of them.
With my costume making proficiencies you would at no time guess
that I’m not an admirer of Halloween. I loathe
scary movies, nighttime hayrides and haunted houses. I detest being terrified;
I despise seeing adolescents with hatches coming out of their heads and blood
dripping down their faces. I don’t get enthusiastic
about commercial holidays and I’m not sure why grown-ups now gussy up all on
their own for parties. Where we live, children
have to bundle up and brave the freezing cold just to get candy. Wouldn’t it be easier to just buy a bag of
your preferred candy, so as to; skip the wind, rain and sometimes snow blowing
you from house to house? To say I don’t get it and don’t like it is an understatement. It is however a rite of passage for tots and
so I continue with tradition for my daughter.
I have always been of the mindset, if you are going to do something, DO
IT RIGHT (no half assed in my world)!
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The succeeding
year, we had a similar conversation; she told me that she would like to disguise
herself as grapes for Halloween. Grapes,
REALLY, who wants to be grapes? Much to
my surprise, I was able to stumble on a few other eccentric people on the
internet that had blazed that trail before me (keep in mind this is before Pinterest)
and I set out to create a bunch of grapes. We fashioned the best bunch of
grapes we could and she once more won first place, in her age group.
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By now, she really grasped the idea of picking a good costume,
making this the year I remember her being eager to pick her next transformation. She regularly had friends, neighbors and
family asking her what she was going to be for Halloween, sometime around the end
of summer. No pressure there! Much to their amazement, she didn’t conceive
very far ahead on her costume ideas. She
would just pull them from her brain haphazardly, when I asked her at the start
of October. This was her first year in
Kindergarten, and I figured she had been chitchatting with her chums at school
and was going to come home this year and notify me she fancied dressing up as a
cute kitty, puppy or pumpkin. No such
luck!
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With a little more school under her belt, I figured she would
get a little bit easier on me, in the costume choosing department and I was over
the moon excited when she said to me in first grade, I want to be
Cinderella! I stood in front of her and
breathed a huge sigh of relief. I
figured it had something to do with our trip to Disney World or other kids at
school schmoozing on about wanting to be princesses. My girl was finally going to be a NORMAL kid
at Halloween, one that didn’t need helpers to get her to the door to ring the
bell, the one that the other kids didn’t stare at and wonder what she was. Thank the gods above, we could go to the
store and pick out the prettiest Cinderella costume you’ve ever seen. Just as the air was filling my lungs back up,
she said, the words, “In a Snow globe.” After a long pause, I replied, “Come again?” She grabbed up one of her Disney snow globes
and answered, “Like this.” Seriously,
how can this be? Time to get creative ONCE AGAIN!
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By second grade her tastes began to change, she wasn’t drawn
to being food anymore, the princess fascination was going away and she learned
that it wasn’t fun to carry around a colossal costume when ringing doorbells. She had decided this year she was going to
keep her costume simple (her words, not mine), which I concurred with. That was the year the allure with space began
and so she declared she planned to be the Solar System for Halloween. That’s what I get for reading books way above
her head for years, teaching her to dream big and telling her anything is
possible. Seriously, the ENTIRE freakin’
solar system, how is that simple?
For
this costume she was able to help out, she lent a hand with painting planets
and attached the stars and astroid belt onto her clothes. Again, we made it happen and we did a Big Bang up job, if you ask me.
Third grade presented a challenge and was the only year we
improvised. She came to me telling me
she wanted to be a head on a platter, which after a few days morphed into Marie
Antoinette carrying her own head (that’s what I get for letting her read a book
on Marie Antoinette!). At this point why
would I expect anything less? Thank god Halloween is only once a year. We hit up thrift stores, gathered supplies and
worked exceedingly hard on pulling this off but in the end, we ran out of
time.
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After being a ghost the prior year, I figured she would recognize
that simple is sometimes best! She must
not have received that memo and her NOT off the rack thinking continued into
this year. What would she come up with
this year? Of course, why didn’t I think
of that, a half man, half woman? After
ten years of Halloweens with this child, the element of surprise is lost on me!
Where does she come up with this
stuff? I think she is an old sole,
trapped in a nine year olds body. She
sure does come up with ideas that get my creative juices flowing. Of course I obliged as I always have. Since she is getting so much more grown-up,
we made a fun-filled day of this and spent the day together gathering supplies
at thrift stores to complete this transformation.
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To my daughter’s credit, I would say not only
has she come up with some superior ideas, she is now able to see her vision
come to life and is wonderful at picking things out to bring things full circle. I’m not sure this year’s costume would have
been as smashing, if I did it on my own.
She has the ability to see the whole picture now and she is able to see
her vision from start to finish. Boy
does she make me proud.
Albert Einstein once
said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
I have had ten blessed years with my daughter creating her unique
Halloween costumes. The experience has
been priceless. There were tears, cuts
and burns and screaming matches but I wouldn’t change any of it for the
world. I was able to use my creativity
and turn my daughter’s Halloween costumes ideas into EPIC costumes that she
will remember forever. We took our intelligence
and creativity and had so much fun over the years. It is my hope that by making these bespoke
Halloween costumes I have taught her how to create whatever it is that she
wants. If she yearns for something in
life that is not on the rack, to go out and make it happen herself!
Instead of thinking that there is a certain way to do things,
open up your mind, think outside of the box, use your intelligence and create
your fun. Even if you don’t like
something, I am proof that if you put your whole heart into it you can create
something special and fun. Get out there
and show the world your intelligence through your creativity, the possibilities
are endless. The memories and fun you
will create along the way will be worth it.
Parents let your kids use their
brains, even if it is in an unconventional way, who knows what they will come
up with? I know that someday soon, instead
of dreading the Halloween season, like in the past, I will miss the time my
daughter and I spent together, using her cleverness to create those amusing
costumes! Time goes by so fast; let kids
be whomever or whatever they want to be, not only on Halloween but every day of
their lives.
Hello Deanna,
ReplyDeleteThis may sound strange, but I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind if I used your photo of your daughter dressed as a bunch of grapes for my website? I manage a wine festival for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle TN, and I've been searching for an image as the category cover for combo packages of folks buying multiple types of tickets... and I googled "whole sheebang of bountiful grapes" because that's what I was thinking, and I got your blog. My best email is events@mentorakid.org, and the event is www.FranklinWineFestival.com. Thanks!