Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Halloween in Review

Every year I acknowledge that there are many controversial opinions out there regarding Halloween.  Every year I remind everyone that I am not offering judgement on your position nor accepting comments that judge ours.  And this year is no different.  Take it or leave it, here's how the 31st of October passed for the Sexton Crew:

I love the dressing up part.  I usually love participating in the dressing up but this year it just didn't work out.  I mostly love the challenge of outfitting my kiddos WITHOUT spending tons of money on pre-fab costuming.  After a look around the house and a quick trip to the thrift store, we were rolling.



I found this strange item in the $1.29 bin at GoodWill.  I had no idea what we would do with it but there were some obvious thoughts and soon enough...



one ginormous snake was crafted and became the centerpiece...






for Isaiah's "jungle explorer" costume.



Nathan loves and already has all things army so that's easy enough.



Mamoune got this snow queen dress last Christmas (75% off post-Halloween sale) so we simply added the Dollar store Christmas ornament earrings and then rubber banded the snowflake ornament to a gold headband for the crown.  She was all glitz and glitter which made her quite happy!  And that left the little people.


 

Bella Bo Peep required a $4.00 Princess costume from GW, one of Mamoune's old flower girl dresses worn underneath for "poof effect" and an infant hat stitched in half with ribbon to tie it on.  We decided a four year old with a shepherd's staff could be dangerous for all involved but "lamby" made for a great prop.  And lastly, all was right in the world because...




Sheriff Justus was on patrol.  Take one cow patterned pillow that two pre-schoolers have pulled all the stuffing out of and give it three snips and some stitching and you've got a perfect "Sheriff Woody" vest.  His sister's bandanna, a dollar store hat, and aluminum star and he was ready to round up some sugar-hyped outlaws.



I spent a total of $16.00 on five costumes.  Not bad.  So, costumes -success!  Candy?  Fail.  Major fail.  The rain was the first glitch.  It seemed a complete waste to get all these guys dressed up and then layer them with rain coats and umbrellas.  So, we joined some friends at the mall knowing it would be packed but at least it would be dry.  Dry, crowded, and candy-less.  Yep.  It was a total disappointment.  We walked around and sadly observed the "sorry, we ran out of candy" signs taped to countless store windows.  By 7:30, our tally looked a bit like this:

      3 hours making costumes
      1 hour dressing kids in costumes
     45 minutes driving to, unloading, parking, and getting into the mall
 +   1 hour walking around the mall

     2 pieces of candy per child
     1 spider ring
     5 "this is stupid"
     3 "when are we leaving?"
     2 "what the heck do we do now?" parents


In some small way, we (Tim and Amie) were relieved.  Every year they get bags of candy and they obsess to the point of conflict and we end up fighting and having to ration the candy before eventually just trashing it sometime around January 15th.  No candy -no conflict.  But the tiny part of us that understands our kid's excitement over all things chocolate and sugary felt bad for them.  So... we left the mall, empty target bags in tow, and made a slight detour through the KrispyKreme drive-thru then headed home to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and stuff ourselves on glazed donuts.

With no masses of candy to idolize and therefore hopefully only one sugar-hype/crash related day of meltdowns and attitudes, I'm thinking we may have found our new Halloween tradition!