Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Once Upon a Time Wednesday....

Once upon a time Wednesday is about things from the past. There are many stories in my head that I want to share with my girls. The trip to Ellis Island, thank you very much Liberty Mutual, this summer made me realize that I had to get these stories documented. History is extremely important and fun!  Play along if you want!

Once upon a time, Halloween was fun. When I was in grade  school, we lived in a great (fantastic, awesome, amazing, SAFE) neighborhood. My mom was no Martha Stewart in the costume department, so she would throw the 3 of us in the Wagoon (think big old station wagon) and take us to KMart where we would pick out a plastic costume in a box complete with plastic face mask. My dad would take the 3 of us trick or treating in our completely flamable costumes with the condensation building up in our plastic masks. We would collect as much candy possible while he enjoyed some treats in cute, little glassses himself. My mom would hunker down at home and pass out the candy.

I don't know what happened in 6th grade. Maybe I got too big or too cool for the box costumes. I wanted a homemade costume. The pain and anxiety I must have put my mom through when I uttered the words "homemade costume" was probably unpalpable. I am not sure when she got the brain storm, but she told me I was going to be a raisin. She was not thinking of those cool purple dude raisins in the commercials, she meant plain raisin. She crumpled up a black garbage bag, put in over my head (yes, she put a hole in it for my head to come out of and 2 arm holes, too), then for some reason added a cut out of a smiling worm. In essence I looked like an old moldy apple with a worm, or a raisin with a worm.

Needless to say, she hasn't lived that costume down. I can be very creative( and so can she), but not so much with Halloween costumes. It's obviously genetic. My poor girls, they think they want me to create something for them, but I happily take them to any store in America for a store bought costume. Obviously, as long as this  family line of women reproduce, we will be keeping store bought Halloween costumes in business.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am so sorry, but you looked so cute! I put duct tape inside the trash bag so the raisin would stay krinkly. :) You forgot to mention the nice leaf hat, that I made out of green construction paper for your head. I bet you can't even find the "boxed" costumes these days! Come to think of it, I don't think you 3 ever asked for homemade costumes again. :) Nana