The odd thing about Halloween, as I think back on it, is that I have almost no recollection of the costumes I wore while trick-or-treating as a child. I’m sure I went, mostly in my grandmother’s neighborhood, but as to what I wore, it’s a total blank. It doesn’t help that most of the photos from my childhood were lost, so I have no cues. And I pretty much gave up the gig by the time I was a teenager, though I may have been called upon to take my baby sister, who was (and still is!) five years younger than I.
I may have donned a costume once or twice in college, but it was in my mid-twenties when I really began dressing up.
One year I wore a Frankenstein mask and a seersucker suit; really stylin’. Another time, I had a skeleton mask with a wizard’s hat and my college graduation gown; there’s a great picture somewhere of me leaning on a car reading the Daily News Sunday funnies in this outfit.
But my all-time favorite outfit was one planned by my girlfriend at the time, Susan, when I was 25. I shaved my beard and a mustache, Susan and a couple of her friends made me up, with a dress from a second-hand store, a wig and shoes from somewhere, and we went to the party, she as “Sid”, and me as “Shirley”.
The outfit, along with my affected high-pitched voice actually fooled people; no one knew who I was, though they were confused as to what I was dressed up as. It wasn’t until later in the evening, when my “five o’clock shadow” started to appear, that people started figuring things out.
Sid and Shirley
I don’t dress up now, but the daughter does. I enjoy the holiday more vicariously now.
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Samurai Frog’s Halloween posts over the years. Mucho posts.
For Thom Wade, Halloween lasts at least four weeks. My favorite post: The Top 10 Horror Themes in movies
An Open Letter to Pumpkin-Flavored Seasonal Treats
A recipe for candy corn.
Reader Wil on traditions.
And since nothing says Halloween to me like Mussorgsky, LISTEN to Night On Bald Mountain
There is a mixed reaction to Hallowe’en here in the UK with the older generation regarding the trick or treating business as a US import. Ironic really since the US itself imported ‘souling’ etc from Scottish and Irish immigrants.
I remember that Hallowe’en was always acknowledged as a prelude to All Hallows, but there was no drssing-up and just an uneasy feeling that witches might be abroad.
We will be staying in, expecting 1 visitor – life is good in a village! lol!
happy halloween all
@Shooting Parrots: I’m a lapsed Anglican in America and remember well how our priest lectured us on All Saints Day and about how, while Halloween might be fun and all, we should remember the saints on the following day.
From south of our border comes “el dia de los muertos,” or the Latino tradition of The Day of the Dead, in which folks have parties in the cemeteries at the gravestones of their departed family members. I much prefer that tradition to the candy-begging orgy that has become Halloween. Much like Christmas, businesses have turned it commercial…
Roger, I LOVE you in drag and will now tell you (but nobody else, ha ha ha) that Lex went to his sister Sharon’s 60th birthday dressed in drag, as Frida Kahlo (most of the partygoers, including the B.D. girl, were gays and lesbians). I figured he wouldn’t have to shave his moustache that way! His whole family was there and I have a pic of Lex’s mom sizing him up, it’s a hoot. Thanks for a fun post! Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/lost-soul-sun-whirl/
LOL! Well, well, well. This is a new side of you never seen before! What’s a little cross-dressing fun among friends, right? I don’t get into Halloween as much now as I did when the kids were younger. Peanut is too far away to worry about doing much decorating, dressing up etc. Oddly, I can’t remember any of my costumes when a child either!