Yesterday was a fun day at work. It wasn't payday, but it was a good day nonetheless - we were visited by about 40 trick-or-treaters. It's a tradition that started with a couple of my co-workers having their husbands bring their kids to work on Halloween so everybody could see their costumes. It's snowballed to where they will plan weeks in advance who will bring their kids or grandkids to the office. The kids love it - they get to trick or treat twice. And when Halloween fals on a weekend like this year, they get to dress up twice.
My vote for best costume this year was for little blonde 5 year old Wonder Woman, complete with the magic lasso and bullet resistant bracelets. She told her grandmother she was worried because nobody would be able to see Wonder Woman's invisible plane. Other standout costumes were a miniature Kansas City Chiefs football player and a baby in a green pea pod outfit. We also had Superman, Spiderman, Piglet, Dorothy from Oz (who was wearing awesome sparkling ruby slippers), a fireman, a pirate, several fairies with wings, and a cow.
Out of all of the 40+ kids that we saw, not one of them had on the costumes like we wore on Halloween - the outfit with the thin plastic mask, held on your face with a rubberband. They came in a box with a clear lid so you could see what the mask looked like without your mother having to fool with opening the box. The masks were uncomfortable to wear. The eye holes didn't match your eyes, and the nose holes never lined up with your nostrils. You had to push the mask up if you wanted to see, or pull it down if you wanted to breathe; you couldn't do both without some modifications. I would end up having Grandpa cut the nose holes bigger so I could breathe. Even then, the mask was still hot and sweaty. I would end up going back to Grandpa 5 minutes later to have him staple the rubber band back on after I pulled it out.
The costume part of the outfit never fit right, either. You wore them over your regular clothes. They were flimsy, and just tied in the back, much like the modern day hospital gown. I don't think they had any sizes for tall or petites - they just had small, medium, or large. If you were too tall, you looked silly because you had about 6 inches worth of pants legs showing at the bottom; if you were too short, you had to roll up the pants legs of your outfit.
I'll never forget my mask-in-box costume - for 4 years in a row, I was Cinderella. I liked the mask because Cinderella had blonde hair, like I did, plus she there was a tiara on the top of the mask. Through a small miracle, one time we managed to salvage my costume and use it the next year. I remember how Mom carefully folded the outfit and put it back in the box with the mask, and put it in on the top shelf of my closet. This was strategically placed, so I wouldn't be able to climb up and get it and wear it during the year and tear it up.
I love Halloween, because I still get a kick out of seeing the kids dressed up in their costumes. But it's a disappointing because we only get about 6 kids, and all of them are a neighbors' grandkids and their cousins. Maybe one of them will surprise me and have on a mask-in-the-box costume.
1 comment:
Once I had a mask in the box costume. I went to my Aunt Hazel's house which was only a couple of blocks away. With my mother standing in the driveway, I went up and rang the doorbell. When my Aunt Hazel came to the door I said "Trick or Treat". I was sure that my costume was so wonderful, she would never recognize me. Right away she said "Well, hello Stacy. Don't you look cute??". I said "How did you know it was me?". Everyone laughed. I was pissed off.
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