Written by Johanna Butler
When mom and dad are sick for most of October and mom finally crawls out of bed the day before Halloween to buy $4 sheets at Goodwill, then digs up two wine corks (like that was hard to do) and cuts up some old sweats—what do you get?
Maybe one of our best Halloweens yet.
Originally, my daughter wanted to be a rattlesnake, my oldest son a snow leopard, and my youngest son a lion. I did manage to make it to the fabric store and purchase ridiculously expensive material with the best intentions, but my husband and I just didn’t have the energy to create three costumes. When I told the kids, my youngest was the first to resign himself to this cold, hard reality and sighed, “Ok, fine, Mom. I’ll be Frankenstein.” And the monster theme was born! So, five o’clock Halloween evening my husband and I ripped, tore, tied, and cut up sheets and colored corks with black sharpies while feasting on delivery pizza.
We were reminded of a very valuable lesson: sometimes you gotta keep it simple and cheap. Because it is not about the costumes. It’s about the CANDY! And you can wear a garbage bag and still go trick-or-treating, right? So, here’s to improvising and big buckets of chocolate.
We hope you all had a very happy Halloween—we did!
My youngest: Frankenstein; oldest: mummy; my daughter: ghost (and her own makeup artist).