Halloween Gives Mom a Scare

Friday, October 17, 2008

Page 11

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Halloween Gives Mom a Scare

By J’AMY PACHECO

When I was young enough to think knocking on doors for free candy was a cool thing to do, I didn’t know, or care, much about costuming.

My siblings and I would throw together costumes from garments and objects we found around the house. One year, for example, I wore my brother’s Little League uniform. Another, I wore one of my mother’s nightgowns, put a necklace on my head to serve as a crown, and went as some sort of princess. We used pillow cases to hold our loot.

My child first went trick-or-treating at the age of 2. It wasn’t the call of Almond Joy that got us on the streets – it was the pleading of the neighborhood kids who begged me to bring my daughter along on their door-to-door trek.

Since I hadn’t planned a costume, I dressed her in a footed pink sleeper. I stuck Easter ears on her head, then drew whiskers on her tiny nose with an eyeliner pencil. Viola – instant bunny.

The following year, I had to come up with a costume for a pre-school Halloween party. With a few yards of bright green felt and a large red feather, I was able to quickly, and inexpensively, create a Peter Pan costume.

It was the next year that things started getting complicated. My little princess wanted to be Snow White, and only an authentic costume would do. Not the scratchy kind you buy – it had to be made by Mommy.

It nearly killed me, but I sewed a pretty impressive Snow White costume. It was worth it, because that gown was worn everywhere, from the movies to the grocery store and, a few times, to bed.

Subsequent years saw me laboring over opulent costumes for Sleeping Beauty, Tinker Bell, Pocahontas, Megara and Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean. My daughter was determined to work her way through the Disney princesses (and was seriously disappointed when nobody knew who Megara was).

Some years, things got down to the wire and I found myself snipping the last thread as the first trick-or-treaters rang the doorbell. This year, we don’t have the luxury of time.

Months ago, we bought tickets for a Halloween event at the Disneyland Resort. It’s being held this weekend. That meant I had to complete a costume weeks before my normal deadline, instead of seconds before the Halloween festivities began.

Unfortunately, my newly-minted middle schooler decided she was too grown up to be a princess. Instead, she declared her desire to be Maximum Ride.

If you haven’t read James Patterson’s series about this unusual heroine, allow me to explain – Max is a girl who was injected with bird DNA, and who therefore can fly. The clothing part would be easy; it’s the wings that made me gag. My daughter insisted Max had to have wings that could be raised or lowered at will.

With insufficient time to figure out the wings, I had to say no. My daughter then said she wanted to be Bella Swan from the “Twilight” saga. I pointed out that if she dressed in ordinary street clothes, like ordinary human Bella, everybody would accuse her of not dressing up.

She finally settled on a fairly easy costume: a spy. So I scoured discount stores for black pants, a black turtleneck, black beanie and gloves, and even black shoes. She was pretty pleased with her costume until Mom had to point out that there wasn’t anything to differentiate her “spy” costume from, say, night, a black cloud or a burglar.

So now, she wants me to come up with some spy “gadgets” for her costume.

“You know, like lipstick and pens that shoot things,” she said. I’m not sure how a mom that couldn’t figure out how to make folding wings is supposed to turn cosmetics and writing utensils into projectile-launching weapons, but I’m going to have to come up with something. Fast.

I’m starting to miss those simple days of nightgowns and pillow cases. In fact, even the Snow White gown seems like a piece of cake compared to this task.

No doubt about it, the holiday season kickoff has once again crept up from behind, leaving me wondering how it got so late and I remain so unprepared. I’m not sure which worries me more: the fact that I need spy gadgets and I’ve got nothing on the drawing board, or the knowledge that Christmas is a mere 10 weeks away.

Forget Halloween – that’s what I call REALLY scary!