Halloween

 Halloween makes for some fun times here at Casa de Diva. Of course, having an incurable case of Art-School-Itis as well as being a tight wad means I require homemade costumes. Not only that, but I was scarred by those vinyl sheaths with the plastics masks that passed for Halloween costumes when I was a kid. Remember your breath making the plastic Casper the Friendly Ghost mask all hot and icky inside? Yeah, me too. I've noticed they don't make those costumes any more. Did OSHA catch up with them?

Anyway, having a large family,  I refuse to buy those 'costumes in a bag' for all six kids every year so they have to come up with costumes on their own. There's some whining and complaining, but I think it's right and proper that these kids expend some effort for their yearly bag of candy.

So most of our costumes end up being made of found objects or pieced together from Savers. We also instituted a rule of no last minute changes. The deadline for costume decisions is night before at 7:00 pm. This rule was set because I would have a kid that wanted to be the Michelin Man. Much effort and time would go into making said costume only to have the kid come up to me Halloween morning and announce they have a new and better idea. This in turn meant the entire day was spent scrambling for something to make them look like Mrs. Haversham. Thus we created the rule.

The day of Halloween is like backstage at Versace's Fashion Week show in NYC; semi-clothed people running round with make-up and hair partially done, fussing and fuming about missing costume pieces. And Mom sewing up last minute pieces or gluing a child into their costume. Finally, after about an hour of mayhem, we're assembled and ready to go.

Trick or Treating is always fun as the kids have to explain at each and every house what their costume is. "I'm a Weeping Angel. Yes, Weeping Angel. It's from a TV show called 'Doctor Who'. No, 'Doctor Who'. It's a British show." Why can't they just be a princess??

Gummi, the youngest, is fun to watch because he's still amazed that all he has to do is say three words and people give him candy. And that this happens more than once. He'll go to a door, flash his winning smile, even though he's dressed as a deadly spider, and then come running back to us with an exuberant, "Look what I got!!" He won't move on until we look in his bag and admire the latest Three Musketeers Bar. And this happens after each and every house.

I think the best part is the next day, what I call the 'horse trading'. The children all gather in the living room and assess their spoils. They sort the candy according to size and desirability. Then they commence furious trading with each other. Not just one for one trading but market value trading. After all, a Snickers mini-bar is worth at least three of those weird Tootsie roll flavors that are only available in October. Certain candies are confiscated by Mom. Like those Sponge Bob chewy things. They are just too weird to be safe to ingest. Some kids try to corner the market on a particular candy. Tater is known to trade anything, including younger siblings, in an effort to get Nestle Crunch bars. Other kids try desperately to get rid of the undesirables like Butterfingers. Then there's the kids who try to gain the Kit Kats and Twix bars so they can use them to bribe Mom later.

Here's the run down of this year's costumes:

This is Buttercup as a pirate. That's her most intimidating face. Maybe she should keep her day job.

This is Gummi as a Black Widow Spider. I think the penny loafers go well with the skull cap, don't you?

This is Baby as RobotMan. No small pieces were swallowed in the making of this costume.

This is W. Bear as Hawkeye. Those are milk jugs put together to make a quiver for his arrows. Reduce, reuse, recycle Hawkeye!

This is Git Ur Done as the aforementioned Weeping Angel. Although in this picture, she looks more like the What's Going On Here? Angel.

This is Tater as Artemis Fowl. Seeing as how Artemis is a criminal genius, we told Tater to look smarmy. This is his best shot.