Halloween--it is by far my favorite holiday of the year. It isn’t associated with the stress of seeing one side of the family over the other. You don’t have to spend hours slaving over a turkey that always turns out too dry. There isn’t the pressure to buy the perfect gift, and you don’t have to worry about fireworks giving your rescue dog even more anxiety. This glorious holiday is filled with pure sugar, something a little spooky, and my all time favorite thing--dressing up.
I’m a sucker for costumes of all kinds, from chic, subtle nods to people in the zeitgeist (two years ago I was Ma Anand Sheela) to full-blown makeup + wig + persona transformations. By noon I had on three Halloween inspired looks already, because why not? I’m fully losing it over here, so I got on a video conference with a new colleague I’ve never met before dressed as RBG. I’m pretty sure I was the only one on my zoom workout in costume since I put on my skeleton leggings which made for some interesting squats. I’m spent the remainder of the day dressed as a daytime witch, in a long red dress with stars and moons all over it (witches only wear black in the evening). What makes it particularly witchy is the tiny cinnamon broom I carried around. Oh, and my evening look was Lisa Left Eye Lopes even though my sister’s costume party got cancelled and the other band members, T and C weren’t there. I guess “L” is for lonely this year. This is what happens when you are over eager to wear yet another holiday look.
In addition to embracing the costumes in full force, I imposed Pumpkin Palooza on the kids. This made up day is filled with Halloween crafts, pumpkin flavored foods, and of course, a timed costume challenge. I like to start Pumpkin Palooza with a trip to Starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte to really get my caffeine on. Then Dave graciously made pumpkin pancakes for everyone while we crafted. This year’s DIY was succulent topped pumpkins because I love succulents and obviously found this on Pinterest and thought once again, “yeah, I could totally make that”. I’m feeling really unoriginal at the moment since I’m gushing over pumpkin spice lattes and succulents, but sometimes I just feel like a basic bitch and I’m ok with that. My original intention was to make a bunch of etsy-inspired pumpkin centerpieces to give away to friends and family, but the kids thought it was funny to make anti-etsy (i.e. totally weird and kinda ugly) pumpkins, so that idea went out the window. At first I tried to explain the concept of succulent ratio to pumpkin size, but then I decided it would be futile to stifle their creativity.
After pumpkins and pancakes came the 1 hour costume challenge. In true reality TV show fashion the girls had 1 hour to put together a Halloween costume from the clothes and random things we already had in the house. I heard frantic shuffling, squeals and a couple doors slamming and at the end of the hour they emerged dressed as tennis players? 50’s girls? Nope...guessed wrong twice. They were the Powerpuff girls. It was a subtle take on the PPGs. Meanwhile, I made Doug (the dog) participate as well. He was reluctant at first, but ultimately posed for a picture. On his first Halloween I dressed him up as Anderson Cooper covering Hurricane Katrina and that was epic. This year though, we decided to do an easy DIY to meet the self-imposed 1 hour deadline. Check out his Beanie Boo costume on my insta, as it was not a far stretch from his everyday permanent puppy look. Overall it was a bizarro Halloween as trick-or-treating in LA was cancelled and we didn’t attend any costume parties, but I must say that I was quite content with a pandemic Halloween filled with crafting and homespun love.