Back when our kids were growing up, off the rack Halloween costumes always seemed tacky to me. I believed Halloween costumes should be homemade, which usually meant something thrown together at the last minute.
If you ask my daughter Elizabeth, she will tell you that didn’t always work out so well. She’s still annoyed about the Halloween we spent in Bishop, California, with my sister’s family. I made her a Jasmine costume that year.
She looked adorable, until it started to fall apart—while she was trick or treating.
Yeah, she wasn’t happy about that. Basically, when it came to Halloween, I rather sucked as a parent.
My grandkids always look adorable on Halloween. Elizabeth does it much better than I did. It’s probably because I traumatized her that year in Bishop.
As for my childhood Halloweens, I remember getting sick a lot on Halloween, which meant no trick or treating for me. And when I wasn’t sick, the only costume I recall wearing was a gypsy costume. Seems like my mother dressed me as a gypsy each year. Now we know why I sucked at Halloween.
(My older sister and me, one Halloween.)