Saturday, October 30, 2010

Speaking of Halloween Costumes...

I agree with Betty Debbie that Betty Neels didn't have much to say on the subject of Halloween. Probably she thought it was a vulgar American holiday. But I'm a bit of a vulgar American so it's right up my alley.
Two years ago the planets aligned. I was 8 months pregnant and couldn't be bothered to do better. I totally grant that Betty Debbie pulled off her 'hanging Chad' better than I managed my 'pregnant chad. Here's what I wrote at the time:

After 8 long years of irrelevancy the pregnancy gods have smiled upon me and allowed one last chance to separate the wheat from the chaff --acquaintance-wise. If you got the pregnant lady wearing the "Chad" name tag as the obviously punny "pregnant chad" of Broward County fame you are so very clearly wheat--if not...chaff.

One of my finest hits was Mijnheer van Voorhees as a heavily tattooed convict. Lamb chops look scarily awesome on him.

I'm not a real seamstress. Betty Debbie can pass as one fairly creditably but I'm a perfect Halloween

sew-er--my work is best inspected in the dim light of a moonless night--hence, many of my cobbled-together creations. If I resemble any Neels heroine, it's the one who made her little sister's fancy dress out of some old curtains and a drastically taken-in adult shirt.

My daughter's best costume was the year she was three. She was a darling, imperious, short creature with dark hair. Two words...Edna Mode. She spent her evening waving a rolled-up newspaper at people saying, 'Pull yourself together!'

And then there was the year I went as a Suffragette: The unforgivable bosoms (shoot, and now you're looking) sorta work in my favor in this costume, I think. I'm holding scissors in this pic (to trim Nathan's lamb-chops but I think they are allegorical: I'm cutting the tape on that glass ceiling!) so you miss my muff (!) but the effect was fabulous. After last year (ugh) having to go as a pregnant chad, I was ready to splash a bit. We're merely soldiers in petty coats, ladies.

This year I'm going as Evita Peron (dear we're treading a fine political line) because I found a killer dress at

the non-Neels equivalent of British Home Stores. I have my opera gloves, yards of beads and a faintly palid air that will undoubtedly carry me off so that I and my heavily embalmed skin may rest in perpetuity.

4 comments:

  1. Have you been memorizing the lyrics to "Don't Cry for me Argentina?" Making forged copies of an altered birth certificate? Visiting Fascists?

    There are so many levels that you could take this costume to. So many.

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  2. It certainly wasn't one of those costumes that made chasing a toddler any easier...

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  3. Is Prof. Steve going as Che Quevara?

    Very timely costume with the passing away of Argentina President Kirchner. Didn't he have a flashy wife that took over his job, too?

    I dressed as a large spotted wild cat, and my alter ego - a 3 foot barbie doll and I were twins, almost. I loan her to the school book fair every year and dress her to fit the theme. This year it was halloween.
    One of my special kids at school looked at me and said Mrs. K you are a cheater. Appalled, I tried to figure out what he thought I had done.
    I forgot my outfit totally! He was attempting to say Cheetah! A humble BettyMary

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  4. Love the pictures! I just sent out my kids with some of their friends and my husband -- it's snowing here in VT, has been all day! So, I'm staying home where it's warm and serving up the little trick or treaters now! My kids are Luke Skywalker (3rd year in a row! He's 8 - does that explain it?) and a Dementor from Harry Potter (the 10 year old, he loves creepy) -- but I miss the cute costume days of Tigger & Pooh and my 2 little cowboys!

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