Recently I was thinking about how, when I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday. I liked candy, of course, and being given it was way better than spending my allowance on it, but more than that, I loved dressing up. I thought about what I was going to be for weeks in advance, and I always made my own costume (or at least the 10-15% of it that wasn’t made by my mom). I remember being a black cat a few times, wearing a leotard and stuffing half a set of tights with cotton batting, then safety-pinning it to my butt to make a tail. I remember being a clown, which I somehow enjoyed despite having to wear a layer of really uncomfortable grease paint that felt like I’d smeared butter all over my face and a horrible Ronald McDonald wig. I even remember having fun as the Grim Reaper, even though I didn’t wear the hooded rubber mask that pretty much was the costume (a hand-me-down from my brother, Grim Reaper the Elder) for most of the trick-or-treating because it was too hot. I also got really into carving pumpkins — one happy face and one scary face were de rigeur every year — and trying to decorate our house in some creepy way, mostly by propping something in the window, like the aforementioned grim reaper mask on a stick after I was done with it, or clothes stuffed with other clothes and posed to conjure someone headless. It’s kind of funny that Halloween was my jam considering that I was not generally into scary things; I didn’t like horror movies (except for a brief period in high school, but that came later) or haunted houses (except for the one at Disneyland that wasn’t actually scary). I guess it was the opportunity to use my imagination and get all artsy-craftsy about it that made the holiday appealing for me. And the Tootsie Rolls.
When Holidays Were Fun
When Holidays Were Fun
When Holidays Were Fun
Recently I was thinking about how, when I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday. I liked candy, of course, and being given it was way better than spending my allowance on it, but more than that, I loved dressing up. I thought about what I was going to be for weeks in advance, and I always made my own costume (or at least the 10-15% of it that wasn’t made by my mom). I remember being a black cat a few times, wearing a leotard and stuffing half a set of tights with cotton batting, then safety-pinning it to my butt to make a tail. I remember being a clown, which I somehow enjoyed despite having to wear a layer of really uncomfortable grease paint that felt like I’d smeared butter all over my face and a horrible Ronald McDonald wig. I even remember having fun as the Grim Reaper, even though I didn’t wear the hooded rubber mask that pretty much was the costume (a hand-me-down from my brother, Grim Reaper the Elder) for most of the trick-or-treating because it was too hot. I also got really into carving pumpkins — one happy face and one scary face were de rigeur every year — and trying to decorate our house in some creepy way, mostly by propping something in the window, like the aforementioned grim reaper mask on a stick after I was done with it, or clothes stuffed with other clothes and posed to conjure someone headless. It’s kind of funny that Halloween was my jam considering that I was not generally into scary things; I didn’t like horror movies (except for a brief period in high school, but that came later) or haunted houses (except for the one at Disneyland that wasn’t actually scary). I guess it was the opportunity to use my imagination and get all artsy-craftsy about it that made the holiday appealing for me. And the Tootsie Rolls.