Pages

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween!

Witch -  Circa 1987
Wizard - Circa 1991ish?
Wizard and Bear - Circa 1991ish
Birthday Present - Circa 1993
Birthday Present and Little Red Riding Hood - Circa 1993
In honor of Halloween I thought I'd share some photos of me and my sister through the years. Our mom is awesome and made every single one of our costumes (dad helped too!). We had some pretty cool costume ideas, like the birthday present and the refrigerator (wish I had pictures of that one, it was awesome!) and my mom (and dad) helped turn our ideas into reality.
I have so many good memories of Halloween. First, there was the town Halloween parade (which is part of the reason we came up with some neat costume ideas) where we would parade around the high school auditorium and hope that the judges would award one of us with a trophy. Despite our well-executed costumes, neither one of us ever took home a prize.
Then there was Mischief Night, the night before Halloween. In the North, the night before Halloween means mischievous teens pull pranks like throwing rolls of toilet paper in trees, smashing pumpkins, spraying shaving cream on car windshields and pulling other pranks on friends and neighbors. Although my sister and I never participated in any of the mischief, it was always fun to wake up the next morning to see what had been done. We hated when the vandals got our pumpkins though.
The day/night of Halloween was always fun, too. At our house we had a scary green mask with a wrinkled, wart face and crazy, curly black and white hair we called Mr. Greenhead who we would dress in our parents old clothes and put out on our front porch.  When I was really young (see witch photo, circa 1987) my mom would take me trick-or-treating before she left for work in the late afternoon. As my sister and I got older, our dad would take us as soon as it got dark. We would bring back pillowcases full of candy, then dump out the contents on our living room rug and sort through every piece.

Now, Halloween isn't quite what it used to be. The people in my neighborhood don't usually leave their lights on for Trick-or-Treaters (much less decorate their houses), so at most we get 4-6 kids. Older kids are discouraged from Trick-or-Treating, and towns and neighborhoods decide when people should celebrate Halloween if it's during the week or on a Sunday. I'm thankful I grew up in a town that always celebrated Halloween and in a family that did fun Halloween activities together. I hope to continue the tradition when I have kids one day.

No comments:

Post a Comment