Costumes!

I was always into costumes, and playing dress-up. It was by far my very most favorite thing to play. My mother had a small hamper that was filled with old costumes and old clothes we could dress up in, and that thing was used constantly. I think eventually we broke the lid, we were in and out of that hamper so many times. I would go to my cousin's house, and my Aunt Carol had all of these slips that were every single color of the rainbow- it was dress-up fodder! We would wear slips over our hair, a slip as a skirt, and a slip up under our armpits for a sleeveless shirt. We felt so beautiful.

Loving costumes the way I did, it was only natural that I thought a lot about Halloween, and what costume I would wear. I had exotic visions of myself dressed in ball gowns Cinderella would have envied, or whatever I was into each year. I would start asking about my Halloween costume in August.

My mother was not into costumes. Costumes were just one of those necessary evils that you had to put up with because it was Halloween. She did NOT want to be hearing me ask about Halloween costumes in August, and would get angry with me if I did. Usually, we would end up buying a costume a week or so before Halloween. Whee. Costumes then were plastic smocks with some pattern printed on it, and a plastic mask with eye and mouth holes cut out and a thin piece of elastic stretched from one side to the other. The elastic would always break after a short time, and the smock was about as beautiful as wearing a hospital gown- no matter what kind of design was printed on it. It did not live up to my glorious expectations.

I learned how to sew specifically to sew the costumes I wanted. I started going to yard sales specifically to find cool costume pieces (the best was a yard sale where the lady hadn't thrown out any of her clothes since the 1950's. I had real go-go dresses from that one!). My cedar chest isn't filled with linens, it's filled with costumes. There's a large box for clothing under my bed that's filled with costumes. I have about three costumes I'm planning on wearing this month for various events.

The only drawback with my love of costumes is that my children seem to have inherited it, and back in June, they told me what they wanted to be for Halloween. August, I could handle, but June??? And they didn't want to be just anything. They wanted to be Organization 13 members from the Kingdom Hearts Video Game. Yes. Really. There is no pattern for this, and the only place I could find that sells them has them for over a hundred dollars- special ordered from Japan. And all this for a costume that nobody is going to recognize! Everyone will assume they are dressed up as death with silver spiky hair.

Remembering my bitter disappointment in the costumes of MY childhood, I am reluctant to disappoint my children. Especially when I've already finished sewing my costume. My sewing machine is going to be really really busy.

This was not a consequence I had foreseen when I developed a love of costumes.