Her kitty costume is pretty minimal, which I did on purpose. I knew the best way to guarantee a costume staying on would be for it to be normal clothing... What, don't you all wear pants with tails? My goal was for her costume to be:
a) comfortable and something she would want to wear (slight failure on this, since she refuses to wear the hat with kitty ears).
and b) something we put together ourselves with a bit of effort and imagination, something we could use again, and something that wasn't a cheap itchy piece of junk made in China by an 8-year-old (another slight failure, since the shirt and pants were probably made in China, separately and by a few different 8-year-olds...)
I can pretty much guarantee that Celia will be the only child we see all weekend without a store-bought costume. Whatever happened to kids making their own costumes? Little ghosts covered in bedsheets and masks made from paper bags? It wasn't all that long ago that homemade costumes were the norm. Think about the excitement, creativity, effort and sense of accomplishment involved in a child thinking of a costume and helping piece it together, or rummaging through the dress-up box to come up with something new. Now think about the experience most kids get these days. Getting ready for Halloween means nothing more than going to a store to buy their costume, already made for them. What are kids getting out of that, other than early exposure to the concept that we must be good consumers? What a missed opportunity!
If Celia and I made a mask, or a hat, or a full costume for Halloween out of paper and markers and dress-up items from around the house- other kids would probably make fun of her. Adults would pity her, because her parents must not have made the effort or didn't have the money to buy her a costume at the store. How sad. When you think about that, Halloween costumes could be status symbols. Unfortunately, status is marked simply by what you buy. Anyone you ask will say that material possessions have little importance, and that family and happiness and all the human virtues you can think of are the most important things in life. But how many of us actually live that way? Because we are bombarded with consumerism and with the implicit idea that our worth derives from the stuff we buy, it's awfully hard to escape this stuff. To the point where, as ass-backwards as it is, people gave my one-year-old the side eye this morning because she was wearing a somewhat motley costume with messy looking face paint that we took time to make, and practice wearing, and pretend we were kitties with for weeks before Halloween.
You are right Sarah, when we were kids? Most years our costumes were nearly all homemade! Now? Asher's costume was $75! Um, what the heck!
ReplyDeletei was just talking about that with mason's teachers today... we have done it both ways, it just depends on what they want to be, and what i am will to do. carter isn't a fan of costumes, so a couple of years ago he was a chef... we got a kid's apron and chef's hat from williams-sonoma, and he carried a big wooden spoon.
ReplyDeletethis year hadley is going as snow white, and last year she was tinkerbell, and still uses her costume as dress up. that's kinda my goal for her while she is at the age of loving dress up. so i bought her costume from the dress up section of target and not from the halloween dept. i am hoping to get a couple of years of playing with it.
celia looked like a very cute cat!
So I thought sweat suits totally came with tails and I got jipped cause I don't have one LOL....anywho I think she looks more than adorable in her cat outfit and it is just precious!! Love it! I remember growing up we had contests at elementary school who had the most creative costume so we pretty much had to have your parents or us make our own....one year I had the bright idea to be a cake....oh yeah and I though it would be even cooler to frost the box cake with arm leg and a head hole with icing, and then sprinkles, but it was real icing hahahahh soooo I was in like 4th grade and the little boys kept eating the icing from my cake hahahahha and when we walked in the parade it was hot and it melted and I was one big blob of a mess but it was soooo fun and I got most original imagine that hahahhahah soooo making your own costumes is def fun and has lots and lots of memories behind them!
ReplyDeletexoxo
Summer