One of the best parts about living in Southern California is that typically you don’t have to wear a coat over your Halloween costume while trick-or-treating. I bet that’s a perk people who were raised here have never considered, but it’s a big one, trust me.
I was raised in Las Vegas, where coats are usually also unnecessary. However, both my kids were born in Madison, Wis., and we experienced a wide range of Halloween weather when we lived there. One year, my daughter, Lux, had to wear a completely different costume from the one we’d bought for Halloween because it was just too cold to go out in an off-the-shoulder Princess Belle costume. (She switched out her princess dress for some warm cat pajamas.) And there were many years when both kids’ costumes were covered up with heavy coats. Does a ninja wear a parka? I don’t think so, but he does while walking the nighttime streets of Wisconsin.
My kids have always adored Halloween, as most children do, so I was saddened last year when, for the first time, my son, Malcolm, decided not to trick or treat. He was 13 then, and it was likely wise of him to quit. I didn’t want him to end up being one of those giant boys who show up on the doorstep wearing only a mask and street clothes, demanding candy. Still, it marked a transition that I wasn’t quite ready to face. He had grown beyond his love of trick-or-treating.
I can still remember Malcolm’s first Halloween costume. He was 9 months old and wore a warm, fuzzy spider onesie from Old Navy. It had a hood with fangs that grazed his forehead. He only had two teeth of his own at the time, and he was so dang cute I couldn’t stand it. We carried him a couple of blocks, stopping at neighbors’ homes to trick or treat, but really just to show off our baby spider. Also, it was absolutely freezing outside and we could only take 20 minutes or so of the cold.
I love the idea of families dressing in group costumes, as we asked local families to do for our October cover story in OC Family magazine. You may have seen them in this section of the newspaper last week. (If you missed it, you can still check out all the creative costumes at ocfamily.com.)
Seeing the parents and kids dress up together made me wish I was the kind of mother who organized a group costume for my own family. We’ve had our share of creative costumes and fun Halloween parties, but the idea of dressing as a family unit never really occurred to me. Now, it’s likely too late – the kids are getting too old to be game. Also, to be honest, we’re just not that organized.
On a separate note, the era of sexy Halloween costumes kind of ruined the essence of the holiday, in my humble opinion. It used to be cool to have the most weird, unique and not necessarily attractive costume. Halloween was about creativity, candy and having fun, not dressing as a sexy witch, sexy monster, sexy pumpkin or sexy alien.
Lux and I recently joked about the funniest Halloween costume that we could make “sexy.” A sexy Abraham Lincoln was our best idea. Then I Googled it and found out it was already a thing: Babe-raham Lincoln. (Which I believe was a term coined on “Wayne’s World)
What happened to the art of disguise, the idea that you can be another person or creature for an evening? A sexy Abe Lincoln doesn’t really achieve that.
Seeing these local families getting into the spirit of imaginative disguise reignited my own love for the holiday. Maybe this year I’ll get my creative juices flowing and think of something interesting to dress as for Halloween. It’s the only night of the year we’re allowed to be someone or something else, and it’s fun to take advantage of that freedom.
Contact the writer: hskyler@ocregister.com Twitter: @heatherskyler
