I was blue. My sisters were purple, pink, and orange. Cathie had the foresight not to make a "white" crayon costume and then have all of the neighbors wonder why one of the McCann kids was allowed to dress as a Klansman for Halloween.
Cathie deserves extra credit for this because some of you kids don't remember 1989, but there was no Pinterest back then. Basically if you wanted to be creative, you had to rely on your own ingenuity. Which, again, is why Cathie and D'On Allen deserve all of the world's praise for bringing my and Sam's 1995 Halloween vision to life when
I know this is the eleventieth time I have shared this picture on Stranger, but this thing deserves the attention.
Also, when I texted Cathie to ask whether she could find the crayon picture above, she responded with a barrage of my childhood photos that have now destroyed my self-esteem.
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| Age 13. |
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| With my sisters. Don't ask me what we are. |
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| With my baby sister Micalyne, ages 7 and 5. |
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| Back in my "drag days" I decided to dress up as a certain family member that Cathie explicitly told me I'm not allowed to name here. |
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| With Sam. I texted him this picture today and he responded and told me he has absolutely no memory of this. I don't blame him. |
Something happened when I became an adult. I didn't stop wanting to come up with creative Halloween costumes. I just got super lazy and gave up trying. As a result, for the last 15 years, I have rotated my two costumes each Halloween: a flower child from the 60s (courtesy of Cathie's sewing skills when I was 17), and a 1970s Navy man (courtesy of Bob's dedicated service back when he was oh my gosh so skinny I'm suffocating).
Last year my friends tried to recruit me for a group costume, but since there are a lot of things I'm just not willing to do anymore, they could never get me to commit to anything. This was much to the chagrin of Matt and John Michael who are still angry with me for not joining them and Wade in going as the cast of Golden Girls.
John Michael screamed at me on a number of occasions, "we'll even let you be Blanche!" which apparently is the most coveted Golden Girls position. I don't know. I've never actually watched the show.
On a side note, Matt didn't get the memo that the Golden Girls idea had fallen apart and so he showed up unwittingly looking exactly like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
This year Skylar is trying to convince everyone to do a group costume, naively throwing out optimistic suggestions, only to be repeatedly shot down. To be fair to the rest of us, his suggestions have been terrible thus far. His most recent suggestion was to go as the cast of some children's animated program from the 90s called "Arthur," which Skylar now believes I am unAmerican for having never seen.
Skylar has no Halloween credibility with me anyway, considering that last October I was trying to find something to do one weekend and I started throwing out some ideas when,
Eli: Do you like haunted houses?
Skylar: What do you mean?
Eli: You know. Haunted houses. Where you go to some warehouse that they set up for you to walk through and it's supposed to be scary.
Skylar: Oh. Yeah. I guess. But I mean, like, I don't believe in them.
Eli: What do you mean by "I don't believe in them?"
Skylar: I mean, like, I don't believe that they're actually haunted.
You guys. He said it like I was maybe trying to trick him about Santa Claus and he wanted to make sure I knew that he was "in the know."
In the know about how the whole commercialized ticketed warehouse October haunted houses are not actually haunted and that they're all fake.
Needless to say, I have ridiculed him at least twice a week for the last 12 months, and I now invite you to do so as well.
Also, he should probably just go as Robert Downey Jr.'s love child since that would require no costume.
I told you all of this because I want you to tell me what you're going to be for Halloween, what your most creative Halloween costume ever was, or what's the best costume you've ever seen. So in the comments below, share away.
As a bonus, upload a childhood photo on Imzy, if you have one.
And I'll repeat my yearly plea for someone to please find a way to be The First Eye. I'm still waiting, people.
Also, please enjoy this week's Strangerville Short while you do.
~It Just Gets Stranger
My husband and I dressed as yearbook pictures one year, which was a hit...but I shamefully got the idea from the interwebz. We can't all be Cathies.
ReplyDeleteThis year, a number of my fellow teachers and I are going as our "inner witches." I'm going to be an earth witch, a friend is going to be a space mermaid witch, and another wants to be a "mistress" witch. We even have our token make friend who is going as one of two things, a man-wich, or Tim Curry from a witch movie from back in the day. We're excited.
ReplyDeleteMy best costume was "Hickory Dickory Dock." I piled boxes on top of each other to create the clock and then decorated it accordingly. I attached a mouse on the side. I remember that it was hard to walk in but satisfyingly received first prize in my age group (jr. high?).
ReplyDeleteBtw, I appreciate that the purple crayon has fangs-are those her real teeth?!
I was wondering the same thing. It's no coincidence that I refer to her to my friends as "the scary sister."
DeleteI didn't even notice those first time through and now looking at that picture I can't see anything else. And I can't stop laughing.
DeleteWhen I was in the 4th grade, my parents let me dress up as Elvira for Halloween, stuffed bra and all. I don't know what they were thinking, and am very grateful that there appear to be no photos of that Halloween in existence.
ReplyDeleteGroup costumes are kinda my thang, so I'm thinking you should indulge the guys and participate this year. Our family has done Barbie and Ken (before kids) Harry Potter, Wizard of Oz, the Incredibles, Goldilocks and the 3 bears. (I take great pride in making our costumes every year. I start in June.)This year, because I work nights and my creativity and sleep pattern are fried, we're doing classic costumes- witch, black cat, Frankenstein & his bride, werewolf - but still home made, still awesome and still a theme!
ReplyDeleteI have no pictures, but my favorite (and most tasteless) costume was zombie kurt cobain when i was 16. I think he had died the year before. it was terrible, and amazing. my boyfriend at the time was NOT amused that my facial hair looked better than his. I wanted to be a nun when i was pregnant, but i was pregnant, and couldn't be bothered to put on a costume and go out anywhere so i photoshopped myself as a nun and posted it on facebook. Close enough! Last year i dressed up for work for the first time. I was little red riding hood's revenge. i had a bloodied hood and a wolf's head i wore as a hat. i don't need no huntsman.
ReplyDeleteSorry, one more comment because I almost forgot: we also did Alice in Wonderland (which were my favorite costumes to make!) and "Scott's Safari," where hubs and I were safari tour guides and the kids were a lion, a tiger, and a zebra and the stroller was fashioned into a jeep.
ReplyDeleteOn Halloween I'm going to be............
ReplyDelete..............exhausted
We are moving that day. Sweet jeebus, I'm out of my fecking mind.
My mom created dice costumes for me and my brother 1 year. She covered boxes with something white and put black dots on them, cut out head and arm holes and we went as a pair of dice. Thanks for the memory! The cutest 1 I've seen lately is for a couple to go as "green with envy". 1 person paints their face green and the other wears a "envy" sign around their neck...lol.
ReplyDeleteI swear all guys who grew up with exclusively sisters have that exact picture dressed in drag and curled hair. I have a picture of my brother for proof.
ReplyDeleteSkylar is a beautiful man. Please post a picture of him on every post even if it's not relevant.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 9 I went as a mailman and I used my mail bag for candy. But I got really into the costume and had neighbors write notes to other neighbors down the way so I could deliver them. I ended up spending my entire night actually delivering mail and I didn't get very much candy.
That is hilarious!!!
DeleteSince my older daughter is obsessed with Star Wars (like her mom & dad,) she is going to be Rey. I am going as Kylo Den, andy little one is going to be BB-8 as soon as I can find the time to make it...and she stops stealing the Styrofoam pieces to wear as a hat.
ReplyDeleteI went as a girl in shock one year, just walked around wrapped in a blanket and had a good excuse for my "fear of all things social" pale and sweaty terrorized face.
ReplyDeleteAs we had no money growing up we always had homemade costumes. We were usually hobos or clowns. When I was 10 I went as an alien. I wore a blue shiny wind breaker with the hood up and OVER that a weird off-the-shoulder prairies dress. It was so weird that nobody even bothered to ask what I was.
ReplyDeleteThis year I'll be OITNB.
That first pic says it all... Cray cray, haha. Big up to Cathie, she's a legend.
ReplyDeleteMy dad's idea: I went as a boom box one year, complete with a opening for a tape deck and push-able buttons for play, pause, ff and rw....(for the children in the room, a boom box is the ipods grandfather, or is it great grandfather? Genealogy is hard...)
ReplyDeleteMost of my neighbors loved it and demanded I sing when they pushed the "play" button. I have no picture proof, just the emotional scars to prove it.
-Mag
If you are looking for a group costume, then clearly you should all mimic this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9TpRfDdyU0&feature=youtu.be
ReplyDeleteOne of you could dress like the singer, one could be an apple, one could be a pineapple, and one could be a pen. (Or even two could be pens. I think there might be TWO pens in this song.) (As a side note, why does that video have over 40 million views???)
My best Halloween costume was when I dressed up as a local television personality (Linda Beaver, of Beaver Toyota). It killed in my hometown and nowhere else.
ReplyDeleteAround age 11 I was a Civil War soldier, which Walmart surprisingly didn't carry, so my non-sewing mom had to sew it for me. I literally (and I mean literally) marched around the neighborhood with a toy rifle over my shoulder, shouting "trick-or-treat" like a drill sergeant.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 8, I went as the captain of the Titanic (before the movie came out, which shows you how weird I was). Walmart also did not carry this one, and my poor mother was required to sew it for her strange son. Everybody thought I was an airline pilot, an insult I readily corrected. In hindsight I should have just let it slide.
I had a lot of friends.
This is amazing.
DeleteLOL, my dad was a Civil War re-enactor. He used to put his uniform on and walk us all over the neighborhood...and that is part of the reason why I didn't date until I was 16.
DeleteI made a condom dispenser costume when I was in college. Covered a cardboard box with white paper and had a sharpie marker attached so people could write graffiti on me and handed out condoms. We had more fun reading the graffiti the next day than we did at the party.
ReplyDeleteMy brothers and I all dressed up as the Ninja Turtles in 1992 because there were four of us but everyone fought over who got to be Michelangelo (our favorite) so we all ended up just being him. All of us. All four of us were the same Ninja Turtle.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to do a group costume, I would definitely do this: http://starecat.com/french-kiss-makeup-costumes/ Only the best costumes can combine rock gods, puns, and French aloofness.
ReplyDeleteI work at a financial institution managing tellers. I think we are going to be contestants on The Price Is Right this year. We will tell the customers to 'come on down' when it is their turn at the teller window.
ReplyDeleteThis will be awesome
DeleteLove this! Will you also guess how much they are withdrawing/depositing before they tell you?
DeleteAnd if you guess too high they don't get to make their withdrawal?
DeleteI loved your aunt J costume. It was one of the best. My go to costume is buffy the vampire slayer. All it requires is a pointy stick. If I forget the stake I just say I'm incognito
ReplyDeleteMy best costume ever was the witch costume my grandma made me in the 4th grade. By middle school and high school I got lazy and went as a baby or a punk rocker each year. Once my friends and I went as triplets and I decided to be different I was going to be the dead one . . . . . yep - I went as a dead baby for Halloween.
ReplyDeleteI think my best costume ever was a couple of years ago when I went to a party dressed as a Utah beauty queen, complete with a white t-shirt under my sleeveless gown.
ReplyDeleteI love dressing up with my kiddos. Two years ago I was a squash and my son was a pumpkin. I tried to get my husband to be a farmer, but he's lame at Halloween.
ReplyDeleteLast year my son was a bear and I didn't dress up because I was too tired that day. For work I was an exhausted pregnant lady - didn't take much effort. Another year at work I dressed up like an intern we had the previous 2 summers.
This year my son is going to be Captain Hook (aka a pirate) and my daughter is going to be Tinkerbell. I also have a fairy costume for myself. I'm hoping my husband will be a lost boy or a pirate. We'll see.
My all-time favorite costume was when I was 6 and my mom sewed (stretch and sew, anyone?) a bunny costume, complete with head, ears and a fluffy white tail. And, sadly, no pictures!
ReplyDeleteI was a cereal killer one year. Got an empty box of Life and drew stab marks all over it and had a fake knife sticking out of it. I also wore a mad scientist wig because why not?
ReplyDeleteMy favorite costume (not my own) was the family at the "Memphis Zoo Boo" a few years back that went as Scooby and the gang. It was AWESOME and they all really looked the part. They had a toddler in the stroller dressed as Scrappy and a teenager that had to be 6'5" playing the part of Shaggy. I probably have pictures of them somewhere. I thought they were so fab I think I took pictures three or four times whenever we came across them again all over the zoo.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the zoo and costumes. The best NON-halloween costume was the guy that was walking around the zoo on a Saturday with his wife and kids simply wearing a Superman t-shirt. He had the hair and I mean TOTALLY looked the part. My nephew who was 5 or 6 at the time saw him and thought he Superman for real. So I embarrassed both of them (and my sister) by asking if he could get his picture with Superman. His wife thought it was funny.
I LOVE COSTUMES!!!!!! When my daughter was little, we went as Kronk, Yzma, and the squirrel from Emperor's New Groove. And then over half of the people at the party had no idea who we were or why my face was painted purple. They thought Kronk was a "Nephite"...oh Mormons :)
ReplyDeleteMy most strange costume from childhood was when my sister and I decided to dress as "Cinderella's Stepsisters After They Fought Over The Glass Slipper". Basically we put on pretty dresses and painted on bruises. Everyone thought we were battered housewives. #winning
My favorite costume to reprise as a teen was a 1970s McDonald's uniform my mom found at a thrift store. I found a way to wear it during every high school spirit week.
One time my brother dressed up as a couch potato. He stuffed his shirt to give himself a beer belly, drew stubble on his face, and used an empty potato chip bag to collect candy.