Trick-or-Treating (9)

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I went way, way back in the archives today to find some cute pictures of my boys dressed up for trick-or-treating--back to a time when my husband and I were still relatively new parents, and our boys were round-cheeked cherubs who were shorter than we were and just beginning to understand what this crazy holiday is all about.

Here's one from 1985 that makes me smile:

Son #1 (2) is a jack-o-lantern, obviously.  Son #2 (9 mos.) is a...well, what do you think he's
supposed to be here?

My firstborn is wearing the same costume that I'd made for his first Halloween the year before, but for this time around I'd found a little hat to go with it at the Hallmark store and added that.  He was as happy as a clam being a "PUH'-kin" (big emphasis on the first syllable) for the second year in a row.  (You may recognize this costume from my Oct. 23 post; in 1988, it was recycled and worn again by son #4.)

Now for son #2's costume.  You can't imagine how excited I was while I was making that costume for my baby boy, thinking that he was going to be the cutest little trick-or-treater on the block.  I'd found the black-and-white-striped knit material and immediately thought "zebra costume!"  And in case the stripes weren't a dead giveaway, I figured once I added those cute ears to the hood of the little hooded top, it would be patently obvious to anyone with half a brain that of course my little guy was supposed to be a zebra.

"What's he supposed to be?" asked my friend (the gal who was my best friend among the young Navy wives with whom I hung out during those Jacksonville, FL years), with a truly puzzled look on her face.
"What do you mean?  Can't you tell?"
"Um..."
"You can't be serious!" I said.
"Let's see...is he a jailbird bunny?" she asked, laughing.

At that point, I realized two things: 1) the ears I'd made were too big for zebra's ears; and 2) I should have added a black felt mane to the hood.  But it was too late for that, so my sweet angel took to the streets in a jailbird bunny costume.  (Dear readers, I must know: at first glance, did you realize that he was supposed to be a zebra?  Or were you as confused as my friend?)

The very next year, 1986, the jailbird bunny costume made another appearance, on son #3 (6 mos.):

Notice I hadn't gotten around to adding the zebra's mane yet..Guess I was sort of busy,
with three boys aged 3 and under!

Son #1 (3) dressed up as an Army man that year--which was sort of prophetic, because although his dad was a Naval aviator, this son is now a Chinook pilot and captain in the US Army.  Son #2 (21 mos.) was Superman, of course--or as he liked to say, "Soup-in-man."  I love these costumes because they're really p.j.'s--and they got lots of wear, long after the trick-or-treating was over.  (The Soup-in-man cape was attached with Velcro and could be removed at bedtime.)  Those were my favorite kinds of costumes: ones that could be recycled later on, or that could double as sleepwear.  Waste not, want not; that was my credo.

I also liked costumes with animal ears...even this one, which apparently didn't scream "CUTE LITTLE ZEBRA" as loudly as I'd thought it would.

C'mon!  He's a zebra!  Anyone can see that...right?

Well, I guess that's it for this Halloween costume commemorative series.  It has been a delightful experience for me, and I hope "my girls" have enjoyed seeing their guys as cute little trick-or-treaters.  Now it's time to go back to coming up with something original to blog about every day.  (Scary!)

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Really?  Have I really put up seven posts in a row that focus solely on my sons' Halloween costumes of yore?  (R and K, are you sure you're not getting tired of this yet?) Some of you out there are probably thinking, "It's not like her kids even had the greatest Halloween costumes in the world!  She was a lazy costume-maker!  I've seen WAY cooler costumes!"

You're right, you know.  Compared to some of the stupendous Halloween costumes I've seen in my day, the ones my boys wore weren't always blue ribbon-worthy.  But I always thought they looked absolutely and positively adorable when they dressed up to go out trick-or-treating.  And that's my prerogative as their mom, I guess.

My husband and I aren't big Halloween people ourselves.  I mean, we loved getting into it when our kids were young, but we've never been the type to host or attend adult dress-up parties every year, the way many of our friends do.  (What I'm trying to say is that we're a bit boring.)  But back when my husband was an aviator in the Navy, before we had kids (and we were just twenty-something kids ourselves), we did dress up once for a squadron Halloween event.  I thought I'd post that incredibly embarrassing 1982 picture here for posterity, to prove to our boys that once upon a time, their parents were young, too.  And that we could be crazy with the best of them.

I don't know why we don't look rounder.  I remember making these big, round felt pillows (notice that they have brown fabric on the inside--the chocolate centers!); but I think we tied the front and back parts at the waist instead of letting them hang in all their circular glory, and we ended up looking like the messed-up, misshapen M&M's you sometimes find in the bag, the ones that you don't dare eat.  These costumes are very scary, I think, for two reasons: 1) we're both wearing black tights (my husband might kill me for posting this picture); and 2) it was the era of men's shorty-shorts (he's definitely going to kill me).

Now you see why we don't dress up every year.  The potential for post-Halloween humiliation is enormous.

But I'm supposed to be posting pictures of the boys, not us; so here's a gem from 2000 starring son #3 (14) and son #4 (almost 13), dressed to impress the ladies for a junior high dance at their Catholic grade school:

Son #3 was a big fan of the whole pirate thing, so this costume was a natural choice for him.  To achieve this look, all I had to do was go up in the attic and find his dad's old jacket from his Navy dress blues uniform, and then fashion some epaulets for it out of shiny gold fabric and fringe.  The party store hat had actually already been worn by son #5 in 1995 when he was a pint-sized pirate, but it must have been "one-size-fits-all," because it worked for a much-larger-sized teenage pirate, too.  (Love those recycled costume elements!)  I did buy the requisite pirate's eye patch for this tall, lanky buccaneer (and I think there was a plastic hook for his hand that came with it as well).  The finishing touch, which hadn't been added yet here, was a Beanie Baby parrot perched rather precariously atop one of the epaulets.  (Yikes [shudder]...remember the Beanie Baby craze?)

Son #4 is sporting one of his dad's old Navy flight suits, his dog-tags, and some aviator's shades to channel Tom Cruise in "Top Gun"--certainly not the first time those flight suits had come in handy as costume material around Halloween.  Talk to him, Goose.

Wow...look at these guys!  They're a couple of junior high heartthrobs.  Move over, Justin Beiber!  They must have had to swat the girls away like flies!  (Mom's a little biased.)

Okay, tomorrow is the last day of this "Trick-or-Treating"/ old-costume-pictures theme.  I'm going to have to scour my photo albums for a good finale!

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Subtitle: "Recycling Halloween Costumes."

I was always a fan of recycling Halloween costumes from year to year amongst my boys.  It was one of the ways I tried to be green, long before being green was as laudable and politically correct as it is today.  I didn't see the point in purchasing new plastic swords or new silly hats from the party store, or coming home with yards of new fabric from JoAnn's, if I had perfectly good leftover costume-makings in the attic that could be reused instead.

If you are a regular reader (bless you, by the way), you might recognize this recycled costume that my baby wore for Halloween 1995, when he was almost 3:

Yes, it's a costume I'd made way back in 1989, when my four oldest sons dressed up as tigers and leopards--long before this little guy was even born; it's the very same costume, in fact, that son #3 was sporting in last Thursday's post.  As I noted in that post, I think it's pretty much an indisputable fact that little ones look positively adorable in Halloween costumes that involve animal ears, and I think this photo bears that out.  I just don't know why my baby looks so glum here.  Hasn't he been briefed that before the night is over, that plastic basket of his is going to be filled with candy?

I just have to pause here to say this.  I'm so happy that my daughter-in-law and son #3's sweetheart both requested that I keep showing these old Halloween costume pictures until October 31, because every morning I wake up and one of my first thoughts is, "I've got to look through my photo albums!"  And what a fun way to start my day!  What a great activity for this mom whose nest is much too empty nowadays!

Okay, moving on.  I can't even remember the last time I looked at this picture--also from 1995--of sons #3 (9) and #4 (almost 8):

These two boys, like their mom, had no trouble recycling costumes.  You might recognize son #4's glorious ninja costume, which he's wearing in the picture from last Wednesday's post.  That boy never got tired of dressing up like a ninja.  Getting a store-bought costume, which was something I avoided whenever possible, turned out to be a very good investment in this case.  He got at least one more Halloween out of it, and then his younger brother resurrected it about five years after this picture was taken.

When I first looked at this photo, I couldn't figure out what son #3 (that cute kid!) was supposed to be.  The party store bowler-derby hat was used the following year for his hobo costume (again, see last Wednesday's post), but he didn't exactly look like a hobo here. Then suddenly, my memory was jogged: that year, he'd told me he wanted to dress up as A MAN.  So I found his dad's 1970's-era polyester three-piece suit in the attic, got him the hat, and painted on a mustache. My husband and I laughed when we broke this picture out. The man costume is just too funny.  "Now that's original," my husband said.  "It would have been easier if he'd just wanted to go as a boy," I joked.  But all I can say is, at least he didn't want to be a woman and dress up in drag.  I would have had to put the kibosh on that one!  And while this costume was very simple in concept, I just love it--and I'll take it over a Freddy Kruger costume any day of the week!

I really must thank you for putting up with this trip down memory lane, which has been highly entertaining for me.  Just two more days of costume pictures to go.  Stay tuned!

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Or a better title for this post might be "Imitating the Saints" (a good occupation for all of us, I'd say!).

When our boys were attending the local Catholic K-8 grade school, the 1st- and 2nd-graders were allowed to wear costumes to school for their Halloween parties, but there was one caveat: they had to dress up like SAINTS.  Each year, there was a "Parade of Saints" in the schoolyard, and we proud parents would come with our cameras and take pictures of our little angels as they marched around the perimeter of the tarmac playground.

When my four oldest boys were in 1st and 2nd grade, each Halloween I would pull together some saints' get-ups for them that I thought would be more than adequate; you know, like a bathrobe and a staff and there you have it--St. Joseph!   But then I would show up for the parade to see costumes that looked like the moms had spent months and months perfecting them, and I'd be a little mortified.

"But I'm a very busy mom,"  I'd tell myself.  I'd had four sons in four years, and while I loved a good saint's costume as much as the next person, I just didn't feel like I had the time to craft the costume to beat all costumes for my kids, the kind of costume that would produce gasps of wonder at the Parade of Saints.  That wasn't high on my list of priorities at the time.

So when the four oldest boys were going through those early grades, here is an example of what, to me, was a perfectly acceptable saint's costume.  I give you son #4, Saint James the Greater (1995):

This costume was achieved with a bathrobe and a hand towel.  But lest you think me the laziest costume-maker of all time, I DID fashion the rustic fishing pole he's carrying here (because this saint was a fisherman who became a "fisher of men"), even cutting the wooden fish out with my scroll saw and painting it.  I need to get some points for that fishing pole!

By the time my youngest son was in 1st grade, Saint James the Greater was in 6th grade and it had been a long time since I'd had to make a saint's costume for anyone.  My baby's first saint's costume was not bad; but for his second and final appearance in the Parade of Saints, I decided to go all-out for a change and put some real time and effort into it.  I give you Saint Patrick (2000):

The robe was made from an old sheet and the scepter from the handle of a broken mop, but I actually bought the green fabric and gold rick-rack especially for this costume.  I painstakingly appliqued those shamrocks on the robe.  I was determined that my baby, whose middle name is Patrick, would be the most splendid Saint Patrick possible. Although his was not even close to the most amazing costume in the parade that year, I know my little part-Irishman was very proud to wear it in honor of one of his patrons.

God bless the administration of this Catholic school for the effort they took to remind the young, impressionable students who went there that the real heroes they should try to emulate are not Ninja Turtles, professional sports stars, Spiderman, or the like; they're the brave warriors for our Faith, some of whom gave their lives for it.  The real superheroes are the saints.

All the wee saints, lining up to head out to the schoolyard for the 2000 parade.

God bless you on this Sunday and every day, and may Saint James, Saint Patrick, and all the saints watch over you.  In honor of the Patron of the Emerald Isle, I'll leave you with this old Irish proverb:

May the Irish hills caress you.

May her lakes and rivers bless you.

May the luck of the Irish enfold you.

May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.

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I hope I'm not losing anyone out there yet.  The subject matter of my recent posts--my grown sons as young boys in their childhood Halloween costumes--is thoroughly engaging as far as I'm concerned, of course.  I just hope my readers (all twenty-something of them!) won't drop "String of Pearls" like a fun-sized Milky Way bar into a pumpkin-shaped plastic bucket.  (Did that simile work?  Or should I just have stuck to the old familiar stand-by "like a hot potato" instead?)

ANYWAY, this blog is now officially dedicated to the cute-little-boys-in-Halloween-costumes theme until October 31, per the request of two of my girls (my girls!  I have girls!  After raising only boys, I now have girls!).  As noted on Wednesday, both my daughter-in-law and son #3's girlfriend have asked that I keep this party going until the holiday is over.  So that's the plan, and my mission now is to accomplish this without boring everyone.

Okay then, here's a photo from 1996 that makes me smile every time I look at it:

This one is a little different than the photos I've been posting so far, though, because these boys of mine were not dressed up to go out trick-or-treating here.  They were on their way to a junior high Halloween dance at their Catholic grade school.  So these killer costumes were not for the procurement of candy; they were for the ladies.  (Parents of small children, be forewarned: you're going to blink, and suddenly your precious babies are going to be asking you to drive them to grade school dances...and then they're going to be in high school, and they'll drive themselves.  It happens, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.)

My contribution to these awesome costumes was a big goose egg.  All I had to do was go up into the attic and unearth one of my husband's old Navy flight suits and one of his old helmets, rustle up a pair of cool-looking shades, and presto--son #2's very macho costume was complete.  He was transformed into an almost-12-year-old Top Gun fighter pilot.  And if I remember correctly, our parish priest lent my eldest son (13) a shirt and collar for the occasion.  Father may have believed (or hoped) at the time that this pious altar server would one day have a calling to the priesthood, but my boy ended up being called to a different vocation.  He's married now, and the father of twins with another on the way!

Ah, good times...good times.  These old pictures are so much fun to look at.  (Aren't they? And just think, there are more costumes to come!  Hello...hello...are you asleep or something?)

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The subtitle for today's post is "Spotlight on My Baby."

Two of my recent Halloween-themed posts have included pictures of my four oldest sons dressed up to go trick-or-treating--long before son #5, my baby, came on the scene.  Therefore, just so that he doesn't feel  left out, today's post is going to be devoted entirely to him!  You wouldn't believe how many times--back when he was knee-high to a grasshopper--we would be talking about some past event and his little voice would pipe up, "Was I alive yet?"  When he was young, the five-year age gap between him and his closest brother seemed as wide as the Grand Canyon.  Poor sweetie!

But baby, the spotlight's on you today!  And boy, are you ever ALIVE!

Before I show you the costume my youngest son wore when he was going on 5 years old--one of those rare store-bought costumes that I purchased on-sight, because it was utterly PERFECT for him--I have to tell you that this boy could do a T-Rex roar like nobody's business.  It sounded exactly like that of the fearsome beast in the movie "Jurassic Park."  I'm embarrassed to reveal that at that tender age, he'd already viewed "The Making of Jurassic Park."  (This was a video we'd made our older guys watch before we let them see the real deal, so that the movie-making magic and special effects wizardry would be revealed and they wouldn't be frightened by the realism of the movie's dinosaurs.)  My baby had watched it along with his big brothers, and he'd studied the T-Rex closely.  Very closely.  He was obsessed with that JP T-Rex.  He used to stomp around the house roaring and swinging his head from side to side, with his arms scrunched into his chest and two hooked fingers on each hand.  That boy WAS a T-Rex!  So when I found this perfect little T-Rex costume, I had no choice but to buy it for him on the spot.

The T-Rex costume was not retired on November 1 that year, not by any stretch of the imagination.  No, in fact it was worn for a good while after Halloween--often, and everywhere. You probably didn't know this, but a T-Rex costume is perfectly acceptable 5-year-old attire, for anything from playing in your front yard to grocery shopping with your mom.  And it makes the most glorious p.j.'s imaginable.

So as far as I'm concerned, that was $20 well-spent. Definitely.

Okay, son, I hope you enjoyed this moment in the spotlight.

Oh, no...now we need to TURN THE LIGHT OFF!  TURN THE LIGHT OFF!!  

(And if you don't get that reference, you really must see that classic movie, "Jurassic Park"!)

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I have gotten two requests to continue showing old pictures of my boys' Halloween costumes--one from my firstborn son's wife (and the mother of my twin granddaughters), and the other from the girlfriend of son #3.  I can't possibly say no to those two darling girls, so I guess I'm on a roll here.  Don't even try to stop me!

As requested, here's another classic picture from a Halloween long, long ago (Halloween 1989, when my four oldest sons were 6, almost 5, 3 and 1/2, and almost 2--and son #5 wasn't even a twinkle in his parents' eyes yet):

I know I've complained ad nauseam on this blog about how much I dislike cats...and these four little trick-or-treaters are wearing costumes that are most definitely feline in nature.  But there are two indisputable facts that contributed to my decision to dress them up as leopards and tigers that year:

1: Little boys LOVE lions and tigers and any species of wild cat that can roar loudly;

and

 2: little kids look positively, irresistibly adorable in any sort of Halloween costume

that involves animal ears.

It appears that son #4 didn't let me put on his whiskers, although I did manage to paint a black smudge on his cute little nose...and son #3 apparently opted out of the face painting altogether.  But my little lads do look pretty adorable, don't they?  These outfits were homemade, but instead of purchasing patterns, I kind of winged it--so they aren't the most sophisticated costumes you ever saw.  But the pants and tops were nice and baggy and could be slipped over their regular warm clothes (which was good, because we were living in the blustery suburbs of Chicago at the time), and overall, I think they worked.

Such happy times...and so long ago!  (What really dates this photo is the TV set!  That was our fanciest TV back in the day, the one on which we watched Disney VHS movies as a family.  It looks so old-fashioned to me now, and so tiny...)

Stay tuned for another Halloween costume picture tomorrow!